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INTIMATIONS 



INTIMATIONS 

A COLLECTION OF BRIEF 
ESSAYS DEALING MAINLY WITH 
ASPECTS OF EVERYDAY LIVING FROM 
A POINT OF VIEW LESS CONTRO- 
VERSIAL THAN INQUIRING 
AND SUGGESTIVE ' BY 
JOHN D. BARRY 



PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO 



Copyright 1913 

BY 



John D. Barry, San Francisco "PC 3 ^—^ ^ 



These essays first appeared in the San 
Francisco Bulletin. They have since been 
revised and, to some extent, rearranged. 



IV s 




Printed By 

Taylor, Nash & Taylor 

San Francisco 



©CU332990 

fat 



To 
FREMONT OLDER 



PREFACE 

In these essays I have had several reasons for 
trying to avoid the controversial method. It 
seems to me least effective for conveying ideas. 
Instead of opening the doors of the mind, it 
often leaves them more tightly closed. Most of 
us, I believe, agree far more than we stop to 
realize. We have been misled by our habit of 
looking for differences. We have developed an 
exaggerated faith in assertion and force. By 
disputing we waste energy and time, we mis- 
understand and we misinterpret and, what is 
worse, we dispel good-will. I have followed 
what I like to consider a more profitable way, 
in spite of its being out of fashion. 



CONTENTS 

"to understand is to forgive" I 

BOGIES OF EDUCATION 7 

RELIGION IN ART 12 

CLEANLINESS 1 5 

LINCOLN 21 

CARING 28 

authority 35 

the rejectors 38 

cripples 41 

"beating people down" 45 

the kindness of the poor 49 

"flourishes added on" 53 

THE IMPORTANCE OF SAYING "no" 57 

CONTRASTS 6l 

THE READING OF FICTION 64 

SEEING 68 

VALUES 71 

DANGEROUS WEAPONS 75 

SMILING 79 

FEAR OF POVERTY 82 

ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE 85 

THE THINGS UNSEEN ........... 87 

TRUTH 90 

PERQUISITES • 96 

WASTE 103 

SIN I06 

THE DESIRE TO DISAGREE 117 

REFORMERS 120 

ANGER 124 

A PLANT 128 

NERVES OF SYMPATHY I3I 

THE LIFE INSTINCT I35 

xiii 



CONTENTS 

SPITE FENCES I46 

THE SHADOW 150 

INTERFERING 157 

THINKING 163 

THRIFTLESSNESS 1 68 

ASKING 171 

DOING THINGS HARD 175 

IMITATING 179 

THE COMFORTABLE PEOPLE 185 

BEING IN A HURRY I9I 



XIV 



INTIMATIONS 



"TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE" 

IT COMES from the French, this greatest of all 
proverbs, tfout comprendre est tout 'pardonner. The 
French idiom very tersely expresses the thought. 
Literally translated, "To understand all is to forgive all," 
it does not sound natural. But we have an equivalent even 
more terse than the original French and just as expressive, 
"To understand is to forgive." 

A woman of my acquaintance lived for many years with 
a man of irascible temper. His explosions used to be terri- 
fying. At such times he would speak to his wife in ways 
that would be almost unendurable. But the wife endured. 
She persisted in enduring even after her relatives tried 
to force her to leave the man. Finally he became violently 
and hopelessly insane. Then the physicians discovered 
that he had been insane for years. 

The wife was both glad and sorry, glad because she 
had not added to his sufferings and failed in what she 
believed to be her duty by abandoning him, sorry because 
she had not been able to help. 

If he had been properly treated, perhaps put away for 
a time, he might have been cured. She, too, might have 
been spared a great deal of anguish. Now, however, 
she understood. And understanding, it was easy for her 
to forgive. 

Years ago I used to know a popular writer of humorous 
stories. Like many humorists he was subject to profound 
depression. It made him develop a pessimistic philosophy. 
He used to make grave charges against nature. "We are 
put into this world without any volition on our part," he 
would say, "and for a few years we are allowed to be 



TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE 

young and to enjoy the pleasures of youth. Then we 
begin to grow old and we are forced to stay here and see 
ourselves decay." 

Some of his friends used to argue that, if we cared 
enough, we could turn the passing years to profit and 
make our lives richer. 

But he had no patience with any such theory. 

For months at a time he would be unable to work. 
Occasionally when I would go to see him I would find 
him sitting motionless, helpless, giving himself up to 
what he called "the blue devils." 

Once I asked him if he didn't take any interest in 
his work. He made a wry face. "I grind it out word 
by word," he said, "and every word draws blood !" 

But his writing read as if he had dashed it off gaily, 
spontaneously. 

On another occasion I asked him if he didn't get any 
happiness out of his success. He shrugged his shoulders. "I 
like the money," he said. 

People who loved his stories used to try to meet him. 
But he kept out of the way. To ask him to meet an 
admirer was to impose a burden on him. 

His case puzzled me. I often wondered how one who 
was offered so much could have so poor a capacity for 
enjoying. 

He died long before he had time to be overtaken by the 
decay that he feared. 

It was a relief to me to hear that when the doctors 
performed an autopsy on his body they found several of 
his vital organs diseased. Now I could understand. It 
was not life that was wrong. It was he himself. 

He simply had not known how to take care of his 
physical machine. 

So his mind, without proper support, suffered and 
rebelled and inflicted on him the torment of depressing 
thoughts. 



TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE 

So often we think that life is wrong when the wrong 
lies in ourselves. 

In the physical life we all know that to understand is to 
forgive. 

It is easy for us to see with our eyes, to understand 
by means of our senses. So it is easy for us to forgive. 
Indeed, in cases of obvious physical defects, we go so 
far as never to speak or to think of forgiving. We find 
nothing to forgive. We feel with the sufferers. We pity. 
And where we can we try to help. 

When we see people writhing in physical agony or 
groaning or screaming we don't blame them for disturb- 
ing our peace of mind. 

If we are selfish, however, we may long to escape from 
the sight and sound of such suffering. 

Most of us have to understand through our senses or we 
can't understand at all. 

It is when we have to understand through the reason 
and through the imagination that the test comes. 

Here we all make lamentable failures. 

In most cases the explanation is that we don't try to 
understand. 

Now we know that mysterious forces are at work in 
life, making people do things that are beyond our com- 
prehension. 

The knowledge alone ought to make us slow to judge 
and to condemn. 

Some day, perhaps, we shall grasp the meaning of 
those forces. Perhaps we shall be able to control them. 
Then we shall realize the folly of punishing. 

There is a man of my acquaintance who, during a long 
career, has occupied a position of great public trust. He 
has been a prosecutor of evil doers. Mercilessly he has 
exposed them. Whenever he could, he would drive them 



TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE 

to the penitentiary. And while he has been doing this 
work he has been learning things about life. He has been 
developing. He has now reached the place where he is 
able to take a wholly new view of his duty and of his 
relation to society. 

As Lincoln Steff ens says, he has caught up with himself. 
He has found that he, too, is an evil doer. And much of 
the evil he believes has resulted from his exposing and 
punishing those other evil doers. He longs to make 
reparation. 

For in his work of the past he has detected self-right- 
eousness and the lack of sympathy that self -righteousness 
always engenders. 

In the lack of sympathy he knows there is lack of 
understanding. 

He realizes that to understand is not only to forgive, 
but to sympathize, to feel with others, to put oneself in 
the other's place. 

When, with real understanding, we put ourselves in the 
place of another, no matter how dreadful that place may 
be, we are not slow to forgive, we are eager. We judge 
others then as we almost invariably judge ourselves. 

It is only by a great effort of the imagination that we 
can escape from ourselves and take the point of another 
who does things or thinks or says things we are opposed to. 

And yet all we have to do is to realize that, in indulg- 
ing self-justification, others are doing exactly as we 
do. 

Few of us seem capable of doing what the man I have 
referred to is doing, getting away from ourselves and 
viewing our actions impersonally. 

But what he has done we must all do if we are to know 
the meaning of life and to live by it. 

There are so many avenues leading to this every-day 

4 



TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE 

truth that we show considerable adroitness in losing the 
way. Our persistence suggests that we don't really care. 

For example, the doctors and the scientists are con- 
tinually warning us about heredity and the influences of 
environment and the relation between physical health and 
mental health. 

We know that there are people who inherit a tendency 
to drink. And yet, as members of society, we place tempta- 
tions in their way. Most of us may be immune for the 
simple reason that we have not inherited this particular 
weakness. 

Yet when we see the drunkard we help to make, we 
shrink away or turn aside our faces, and we shake our 
heads. 

We seldom think of helping. 

Nearly always we judge. 

Perhaps the proverb ought to be changed. Perhaps it 
should be: "To understand is to forgive every one but 
ourselves." 

In the slums of the great cities vice is rampant. When 
we go slumming we see it expressed through women that 
we call fallen women and through men that have reached 
the same depths or greater depths. 

We used to blame the women and men far more than 
we do now. 

About these people we are learning. 

Among other things we are learning that, with very few 
exceptions, they are not in the depths because they choose 
to be there, but because we have helped to drive them 
there, you and I among the others. 

And even toward those we call "naturally depraved" 
we are changing our attitude. 

If they are "naturally depraved," of course they are 
not to blame. They deserve only pity and help. 

Shall we further afflict those already so afflicted? 



TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE 

Just now there are others, very different in appearance 
and just as blind to truth, in some ways just as depraved. 

They live in magnificent houses, they wear beautiful 
clothes and they go about in automobiles. 

It is they who have captured a large part of the bounty 
of the earth. 

They are keeping for themselves far more than they 
can use, or their children can use, or their children's 
children. 

Their greed is making millions of their fellow creatures 
suffer. 

But they pay no heed. They don't understand. 

Some of us are angry about them. But our anger is 
unjustifiable. 

For if we were in their place, if we led lives like theirs, 
so sheltered from the truth, we should be just like them. 

If we feel patience and pity for the wretches of the slums, 
let us feel pity and patience for those others. 

They are losing the opportunities of life exactly as those 
others are. 

They are not to blame. They haven't waked up yet. 
They don't understand. 



BOGIES OF EDUCATION 

SEVERAL men of my acquaintance, men who have 
achieved success, nourish sadness in their lives. I 
often hear them refer to it regretfully. 

They have been denied a college education. 

At first I used to feel like laughing. Now I sympa- 
thize. I wish that they might have had a college educa- 
tion. 

But my reason is different from theirs. 

They wish it, or think that they wish it, because college 
education would have given them certain advantages and 
because they think that without these advantages they 
have suffered a handicap. 

I wish it because I know a college education would con- 
vince them of the comparative unimportance of a college 
education. 

There is another point worth considering here, however. 
These men are hampered in their consciousness of not hav- 
ing had a college education. They think that it places 
them on an inferior level, that is, in their relation with 
college men. And they sometimes show a concern lest col- 
lege men try to patronize them, as I suspect college men 
occasionally do. 

That feeling is a real, handicap. Besides, it must be 
very unpleasant. 

I know a writer, a very able man, who often apologizes 
because he has not received a college education. When he 
gets into a discussion with friends, college men, most of 
them utterly inferior to him in ability and in real culture, 
he likes to make remarks of this kind : "Well, of course, 
you know I'm not a college man. I haven't the authority 
that you fellows have. Maybe if I knew as much as you 
do I should hold a different opinion." 



BOGIES OF EDUCATION 

Some of his college friends like his modesty. Others 
think it is insincere. Still others find it disconcerting. 

I suspect he is not wholly frank in his attitude ; but way 
down deep I know that he suffers from the sense of some- 
thing lost in his life, something that never can be made up. 

When William Dean Howells was editor of the Atlan- 
tic Monthly, he lived in Cambridge. Naturally he was 
thrown into association with the college people. One 
day, while walking through the college grounds with 
James Russell Lowell, he expressed regret that he had 
not gone to college. Lowell considered the matter very 
thoughtfully. Then he assured Mr. Howells that he 
believed the regret was unnecessary. If Mr. Howells had 
gone to college, he explained, he might have lost his 
originality, his fresh outlook on life. He might have been 
made academic, imitative. 

I imagine that the conversation gave a great deal of 
comfort to Mr. Howells. 

At any rate, Mr. Howells is an admirable example of 
the man who, without going to college, may become one 
of the most highly educated and most broadly cultivated 
men in the world. 

Here is the point : Colleges are not the only avenue to 
education. With some people they may not be the best 
avenue. i 

There are many other avenues. 

The best avenue of all is the avenue of life. 

And the best that a college education can do for any 
man is to prepare him to take full advantage of the educa- 
tion provided in the avenue of life. 

Some people do not need this preparation. They are 
often those who lament that they have not gone to college. 

One may positively be harmed by college education. 
I have known men to be ruined for life by going to col- 

8 



BOGIES OF EDUCATION 

lege. And among these men I don't include those boys 
who fall into vicious habits. I include that most remark- 
able class of human beings, those who become infected 
with intellectual pride, whose minds are closed to the 
education provided by life. 

There are many such. One sees them on all sides. 
Usually they are finely dressed. They look out on life 
with what seems like a noble self-assurance. 

Yes, they look out with apparently clear eyes. But 
they see nothing. 

And what is worse, they imagine that they see things 
which are wholly false and debasing to themselves. 

They live in a world of sham created by their own 
prejudices. 

I once heard a conversation between two thoughtful 
seniors in a great college. They were talking about what 
the college had done for them and were asking if they 
could conscientiously consider themselves educated men. 

They frankly decided that they could not consider 
themselves educated men. 

They were clever enough, even at that period, to rec- 
ognize what all college men of mature years must rec- 
ognize, that college is the primary school of life. 

Those college men who accepted college as what is 
called in the language of young girls' seminaries, "a 
finishing school," can never claim to be educated at all. 

And yet, I know plenty of college men, well advanced 
in life, who remain, intellectually speaking, at the very 
point where they were on the day of graduation. 

And I know plenty of other men, who have never seen 
the inside of a college, and yet are, in the true sense of 
the word, far better educated than most of the college 
men in the world. 

The present reaction against college education is very 
different from the old prejudice, far more reasonable and 



BOGIES OF EDUCATION 

intelligent. It frankly says that college education, instead 
of being what it claims to be, an efficient means of prepar- 
ing young people to use their abilities and their characters 
to best advantage, merely puts into the mind a great deal 
of useless or misleading or merely decorative knowledge 
and develops crippling prejudices. So often one hears 
college graduates urge young men not to waste valuable 
years in college but to give those years to practical life. 

One young woman of my acquaintance, an expert stenog- 
rapher, after several years of work that sharpened her 
faculties and developed her intelligence, told a college 
graduate, a woman, that the ambition of her life was to 
take a college course. The woman replied: "If I were 
you I wouldn't do it. You have learned from your work 
more than any college can teach you. At best all it could 
give you would be certain technical training. Much of 
the study would seem to you like child's play." 

Remarks of this kind plainly indicate that there is some- 
thing the matter with our higher education. By young 
people themselves it is regarded as chiefly valuable 
through its association. One often hears them saying that 
it makes four of the pleasantest years in life and creates 
friendships and associations that are likely to be of prac- 
tical advantage. Unless it does much more it can hardly 
justify itself as an institution. And surely there is no 
excuse for its sending into the world those bogies of 
education that develop so many heartburnings and mis- 
conceptions. 

All of which does not keep me from longing for the 
time when every one shall have a chance, whether he 
decide to accept it or no, to get the full preparation for 
the education of life, when there shall be colleges of real 
democracy where students shall be taught to think for 
themselves and to build their lives on generous ideals. 

10 



BOGIES OF EDUCATION 



This is more than some of our colleges are doing for 
students today. In fact, in certain great colleges, democ- 
racy is decidedly at a discount. And generous ideals go 
down before the competitive social spirit which leads to 
the petty competition of the world. 



11 



RELIGION IN ART 

A DISTINGUISHED art critic maintains that there 
can be no art without a great religion. For illustra- 
tion he points to the achievements of Michael An- 
gelo and Raphael and to many other painters of a time 
when religion was the chief inspiration of art. 

I thought of that critic's philosophy when I looked at 
the canvases in a superb loan collection, including Millet's 
"The Man with the Hoe." Some of the most impressive 
dealt with religious themes. They gave opportunities for 
splendid effects of color. One, reproducing a church 
prbcession, was particularly beautiful and inspiring. 
After looking at it I went back to "The Man with the 
Hoe." I felt puzzled. Here was a picture that had 
no brilliant coloring, no splendor of background. And 
yet it was the center of interest in this collection, the 
gem. Moreover, it had been acclaimed by the world as 
not merely one of the greatest of modern paintings, but 
one of the greatest masterpieces of all times. Consid- 
ered from the severely aesthetic point of view, it had 
no beauty. On the contrary, it was hideous. The man, 
standing in the foreground, seemed brutish. He leaned 
against a hoe that reached to his waist as if he felt a 
natural inclination to bend toward the earth. The rocky 
ground about him looked pitifully barren. In the face 
there was little to differentiate the man from the beasts 
of the field. He had the air of being oblivious to the 
sweeping beauty of the sky, to the intoxication of the air 
and sunshine. In his coarse features, with the high 
cheekbones and the small dull eyes, centuries of toil found 
dumb expression. 

What inspiration could there be in such a picture? Did 
it have anything that might be said to approximate the 
spirit of religion? 

12 



RELIGION IN ART 

Perhaps the best answer would lie in the effect of the 
picture on the world. It has done more than we can 
possibly calculate to move the hearts of women and 
men. It has made us all realize the wide differences in 
the possibilities of human development. I know that 
David Starr Jordan is not wholly in sympathy with 
the interpretation of the picture given by Edwin 
Markham. "The Man with the Hoe," he thinks, does 
not stand for the debasement of a human type. He is 
not bent toward the land, but rising. In either case, 
we must all agree that he has not risen far. Compare him, 
for example, with the higher types developed by civiliza- 
tion. He represents a pitiful waste of human material. 
Where he is now "brother to the ox" he might, under 
favoring conditions, become like a god. 

Such, then, is the lesson of "The Man with the Hoe." 
It makes us perceive that in spite of being "brother to the 
ox" he is our brother. In the conditions of his life, both 
present and reaching back into the past, we might be 
exactly like him. Those beautiful pictures of medieval 
religious ceremonial charm us with their beauty and cul- 
tivate our senses and appeal to us through the spirit of 
aspiration and of devotion. But is there no cultivation 
in a painting like "The Man with the Hoe," no appeal 
to the senses and to the nobler impulses'? 

It seems to me that there is. And it is one of the 
strongest and the highest of appeals. It is the appeal of 
humanity, of brotherhood, making men long to give to 
others the opportunities they have enjoyed themselves or 
even perhaps greater opportunities, to open up to the 
whole mass of mankind the riches of the world now pos- 
sessed by the few. 

After all, that art critic must have been right. There 
cannot be a great art without a great religion. But that 

13 



RELIGION IN ART 

great religion need not be associated with ceremonial. It 
must go, however, back to the spirit that finds in cere- 
monial only one of many noble expressions. 

The art exemplified by Millet teaches us that there is 
a beauty transcending color or design. It reaches down 
to the significance of human relations. 

Once "The Man with the Hoe" could not have been 
painted by a great artist. It would have had no appeal as 
a theme. Moreover, the lesson would have been lost. 
For in all works of art two factors are brought into play, 
the spirit of the artist and the spirit of those who look at 
his work. 

Millet was moved by the new democracy, first preached 
in France with notable effect by Rousseau and leading 
through the horrors of the French revolution to the 
dawning of the era that joyously recognized the inalien- 
able rights of man. When "The Man with the Hoe" 
was given to the world it found the world responsive. 
It showed how much could be done by one powerful 
illustration, free from the passion of argument, silent and 
yet speaking with a multitude of tongues. It also pointed 
the way to other painters dominated by the modern spirit. 
But they have been slow to follow. They have not rec- 
ognized the immense possibilities for artistic expression 
that lie within the new religion. Perhaps, as yet, they 
have not felt it deeply enough. Like so many artists, 
they may have been too far removed from the seething 
life of toil and anguish that offers the finest inspiration. 
But the day is coming when there will be many paintings 
that can be classified with "The Man with the Hoe," 
when the world will see a great new art founded on the 
great new religion, which, after all, is the old religion 
of Christ interpreted in the light of the modern spirit. 



14 



CLEANLINESS 

WE SPEAK of cleanliness as if it were a moral 
quality. In itself, however, it is a mere con- 
vention. 
If each of us were to become a Robinson Crusoe we 
should find cleanliness much harder to maintain than it 
is now. 

Long established habit would not be enough. 

We should have to draw on the resources of character. 

There is such a thing, of course, as being over-concerned 
in the matter of cleanliness. Sometimes we hear people 
referred to contemptuously as being "afraid of dirt" or 
"afraid to soil their hands." Their love of cleanliness 
may be a weakness, not, however, in itself, but through 
association with unworthy qualities. 

There are times when it may be discreditable to remain 
clean. Refusal to soil one's hands or one's clothes may 
mean refusal to meet a duty or to perform a distasteful 
service. 

Children often ridicule one another for betraying a fear 
of dirt. In a child such a fear may be a bad sign. It 
may indicate unattractive and unwholesome precocity, or 
selfishness, or vanity. 

In boys it nearly always betrays effeminacy. 

I have often been amused to hear of some of the precau- 
tions against uncleanliness taken by the rich in travel- 
ing. One woman carries with her not only drinking water, 
but the water she uses in bathing. She carries also a 
rubber bowl which is made to cover the basin in her 
stateroom. In this way she believes she avoids contam- 
ination. 

15 



CLEANLINESS 

This woman forgets that there may be contamination 
in her very solicitude for herself. And what can she 
think about the impurities in the air which she must con- 
stantly breathe, not only in trains, but in her every-day 
experiences in the world? 

It is possible to think so much about cleanliness as to 
invite uncleanliness. 

The mental attitude can turn clean things into un- 
clean. 

Here we should bear in mind the belief of that physi- 
cian who declares there is no such thing as uncleanliness 
and eats sugar drawn from the human body. 

The uncleanliness in regard to things outside one is 
largely mental. 

Many of those most solicitous about cleanliness of body 
will, nevertheless, clog the body with impurities. They 
will eat unwholesome food. They will develop unsightly 
debilitating fat. 

They may be unaware of their uncleanliness, but to 
the eye of the physician they are diseased. 

If people were only half as careful about the cleanliness 
of their vital organs as they are about the cleanliness of 
their skins there would be far less sickness in the world, 
far less mental depression. 

In this regard civilization has made very little prog- 
ress. On the contrary, in many ways, it has gone back. 
The Jewish people, for example, made internal cleanli- 
ness a matter of grave concern, associated with the prac- 
tice of their religion. At present, those who follow the 
old dispensation are grieving because, in this regard, as 
well as in some other ways, their children are ceasing to 
follow tradition. Great sacrifices they make for the sake 
of maintaining what they believe to be perfect cleanli- 
ness. To the younger generation these sacrifices seem 
either unnecessary or not worth making. 

16 



CLEANLINESS 

On the other hand, within recent years, there are signs 
of a return to the old-fashioned ideal of complete clean- 
liness of body. Most of the food cults have among their 
aims this ideal. It is easy to laugh at them. And in their 
theories there may be a good deal that is absurd. But 
they show that they are working toward a deeper cleanli- 
ness than most of us even think about. 

There is, however, a deeper cleanliness still, far more 
important than any other, related to physical conditions, 
too, cleanliness of mind. 

How many of us strive to maintain this kind of clean- 
liness*? 

There are those who believe cleanliness of mind is 
necessarily associated with cleanliness of body. But the 
world at large knows better. 

Several years ago a distinguished English writer 
brought ridicule on himself by declaring that a man who 
was careful about his personal appearance would be care- 
ful about his morals. 

In "The Kreutzer Sonata" Tolstoy has described those 
easily recognizable libertines who, at evening parties, 
appear in faultless clothes and immaculate shirt fronts, 
fairly shining with cleanliness. 

Often the worst violators of the moral law are the most 
carefully dressed, among both women and men. 

It does not necessarily follow, however, that such vio- 
lators of the moral law are unclean in mind. 

Here is a point that we ought never to forget. 

Morality is not merely a matter of doing. It is essen- 
tially a matter of thinking, of being. 

Some of the best behaved people in the world are the 
most unclean in mind. The offenses that, through fear 
or lack of opportunity, they never commit, they may 
shamelessly yield to in dark recesses of consciousness. 

17 



CLEANLINESS 

Some of those considered unclean in their lives, through 
the violation of our conventions and laws, may, in mind, 
be cleaner than those who judge them most harshly. 

Cleanliness of mind is one of the most subtle of all 
things to discuss, the most elusive, the most mysterious. 
Perhaps absolute cleanliness of mind is impossible. 
The very people who most love purity, and who strive 
hardest, not only in deed, but in thought, to keep pure, 
are often afflicted with shameful thoughts. They, them- 
selves, would be slow to claim that they possessed clean- 
liness of mind. Yet, is it not possible that in such minds 
the unclean thoughts are mere reflections, like the reflec- 
tions in a perfect mirror? They are not unwholesome 
unless they are welcomed in the mind, entertained, 
indulged. 

Just as physical cleanliness is hygienic, so is cleanliness 
of mind. It keeps the mind in a condition where it can 
generate healthy thoughts. And the thoughts find 
physical expression through health in the body. 

Here we can see what Socrates meant when he said that 
virtue was its own reward. If we can trace virtue from 
its beginnings, from the cleanliness that it generates in 
the mind, to its effect on the body, we shall find it flower- 
ing into all kinds of beauty and stimulating activity and 
inspiring social relations. 

Love for cleanliness of mind, however, has to be encour- 
aged and developed exactly like love for cleanliness of 
body. And just as cleanliness of body is related to eco- 
nomic conditions, so is cleanliness of mind. For there are 
unquestionably those who, driven by the lack of oppor- 
tunity from the wholesome expression of themselves in the 
world of activity, resort to unwholesome expression 
through the imagination. Perhaps only the doctors and 

18 



CLEANLINESS 

the priests know how hideous the consequences may be, 
how revolting, how menacing to the future of the race. 
When we come to appreciate these consequences in all 
their horror, bitterly we shall realize our shortsightedness 
in maintaining conditions that make them possible. And 
quickly we shall set about putting our civilization in 
order ! 

There is another form of cleanliness that is sometimes 
ignored, cleanliness of outlook. There are those who, 
while perhaps clean in body and in morals, nevertheless 
look out on life through a musty consciousness, never 
thoroughly swept and dusted, never properly aired, never 
opened out to the sunshine. Hence, so much of the 
loose, mistaken, involved, prejudiced thinking in the 
world. Hence, so much of the foolish arguing, the ill 
feeling engendered through differences of opinion, the 
wasteful division into hostile, intellectual groups, all 
sincere, all misguided, all working against one another 
in the name of righteousness and progress. 

Perhaps this kind of intellectual uncleanliness is the 
most distressing. 

If we could reach absolute intellectual cleanliness we 
might find the way clear to reaching nearly all the other 
kinds of cleanliness ! 

The highest kind of cleanliness we seldom hear spoken 
of, cleanliness of soul. And yet we often refer to people 
as being "whole-souled." We mean that those people have 
the rare gift of yielding themselves completely to their 
more generous impulses. The whole-souled people may 
usually be found among those who possess cleanliness of 
soul. For cleanliness of soul means identification of the 
spiritual nature with the regenerative forces that make 
for right living, for enlightenment and for the welfare 
of the whole race. It is only here and there, among the 

19 



CLEANLINESS 

great leaders, that we can find notable evidences of 
cleanliness of soul. And yet it may exist all about us, 
among those who, without being in any way conspicuous, 
are nevertheless in harmony with the spirit of truth. 

And what does the spirit of truth teach ? Does it not 
teach that all cleanliness is related to cleanliness of 
soul 1 ? If we were clean of soul we could not endure 
the conditions economic and social that developed 
all the other kinds of cleanliness. We could not 
look with complacency on the conditions of the slums in 
the great cities, such as London and New York. We 
should know that such uncleanliness reflected itself in 
our own souls and that our superiority to it, our aloofness 
from it, our feeling that we could not in any way be 
related to it or responsible for it, was one of the saddest 
proofs of our own uncleanliness. 



20 



LINCOLN 

LINCOLN left behind little to prove his right to 
distinction. It was his spirit, far more than any 
achievement, that made him fine. It was more 
what he was and what he felt than what he did. 
And yet, already, his fame is sure. For, of American 
heroes, though among the most recent, he is already the 
most romantic, the object of the most interest and of the 
deepest reverence. Observe, for example, the way Phillips 
Brooks once summed him up: "There are men as good 
as he, but they do bad things. There are men as in- 
telligent as he, but they do foolish things. In him good- 
ness and intelligence combined and made their best result 
of wisdom." It was the combined goodness and intelli- 
gence of Lincoln that made him the great American dem- 
ocrat. To the nation founded on democracy and yet so 
fearful of the security of its foundation, so mistrustful 
of itself, both of its women and of its men, he came to 
offer the lesson of the democratic spirit. He was its em- 
bodiment, the proof that, under circumstances that might 
have driven the nation to despair, it could work for 
righteousness. 

Lincoln was a late achiever. At the time when men are 
beginning to show whether they are in the success zone 
he was close to failure. The son of a rover, born to 
poverty, he turned from one small occupation to another. 
His tall, lank form, his plain face and his drawl must 
have made his inconspicuousness all the more contradic- 
tory and absurd. The chance that gave him a postmaster- 
ship in a small town enabled him to find time to study 
law. Now his natural qualities asserted themselves, his 
determined character, his faculty for getting at the kernel 

21 



LINCOLN 

of a problem and for making it luminous through illus- 
tration drawn from experience. Once admitted to the bar, 
he was on the high road to his destiny. And yet, years 
later, while he was President, in reply to a question from 
Emerson whether a man could practice law and yet do as 
he would be done by, his only answer was a sigh. The fact 
was he clearly recognized, as most men do today, that there 
was a wide difference between man-made law and the 
ideal of justice, and that man-made law could be made a 
bulwark of injustice. This knowledge he put to generous 
service in his practice by insisting that the most honorable 
course for a lawyer was to keep, so far as he could, all 
his clients out of court and to help them settle their dis- 
putes without placing themselves in the clutches of legal 
technicality. 

As soon as Lincoln became prominent there were those 
who were eager to proclaim his kinship with a family 
that held an honorable place in American life. Their 
efforts must have appealed to his sense of humor. 
It is true that he did come of sturdy English stock 
by way of New England, where other Lincolns had won 
a measure of success in public service. By going back 
far enough the humblest might ally themselves with the 
greatest. No one would deny that Adam belonged to one 
of the first families, no one but a hypercritical Darwinian. 
Genealogy would lose its fashionable appeal if it were 
without limits. When Lincoln first heard of his distin- 
guished ancestry, if he gave any heed to it at all, he was 
probably made the more keenly aware of his own insig- 
nificance as a poor relation. The hardships of his boy- 
hood helped to give the turn to his nature that, in ma- 
turity, developed into a profound depression. They had 
sympathetic, almost sentimental material to work on. 
The youthful love affairs of Lincoln reveal strong emo- 
tional feeling. From the point of view of his later career 

22 



LINCOLN 

they make strangely contradictory reading. And yet his 
marriage appears to have been one of the least sentimental 
acts of his life. On the day of the wedding, as he was 
leaving home, some one asked him where he was going. 
He replied: "To hell, I guess." It remains to his credit 
that, in spite of his trials in this union, he bore the vaga- 
ries of his wife with sublime patience. His love for 
children extended beyond his own children. Only a man 
of tenderest understanding could have written that simple 
letter of sympathy to the mother who had lost five sons 
in defense of the country. 

There was a direct relation between the sadness of 
Lincoln and the merriment. Such extremes often exist 
in one nature. Indeed, they seem to reflect each other, 
occasionally, by reaction, to cause each other. Lincoln 
found relief from care and depression by abandon- 
ing himself to intervals of hilarious wit and story 
telling. His use of stories showed a kind of genius. By 
a story he could make a seemingly abstruse reason or a 
difficult point as clear as daylight. In his writing he was 
more serious, giving expression to another kind of genius. 
It was his love of truth and simplicity that made him a 
great artist. For all his violations of taste in his story 
telling he could reveal perfect taste in his expression of 
lofty ideas. Perhaps one explanation lay in his early 
reading. His few books were great books and, by reading 
them again and again, he became inspired with the spirit 
of good literature. One was the Bible, that monument of 
history and ethics and religion, expressed in pure #nd 
noble speech. 

After a holiday, celebrating a figure like Lincoln, one 
sometimes wonders how much it means to the people at 
large. Do they think of the great figure 1 ? Or do they 
merely enjoy the holiday 1 ? Surely it is something for 

23 



LINCOLN 

them to have the holiday to enjoy. The great figure, if 
he can look down, must enjoy it with them. It must be 
a gratification to him that he has contributed the holiday 
to the overworked nation. And in the general forgetful- 
ness, his tolerance may find a certain solace, not without 
humor. 

Always there are those who offer reminders of the mean- 
ing of the holiday, the educators and the other official 
guardians and advisers of the race, self-appointed or 
otherwise. The schools, of course, have done a good deal 
to celebrate Lincoln. I wonder how close the celebrations 
and reminders bring those concerned to Lincoln, to the 
real man. 

With time, so many heroes became figure-heads, mere 
examples of greatness, aloof, severe, unhuman. It is prob- 
able that Lincoln will escape this tragedy. He was, 
above all things, human, the kind of figure that people 
often call, some people with respect, other people with 
derision, a common man. He was essentially of the 
people, homely, rugged, in many ways crude, often 
coarse in his talk, fundamentally humorous, a rich sharer 
in the precious heritage of laughter characteristic of the 
Western American. He was destined to become the 
saddest figure in American history, the most isolated, the 
loneliest. And the combination of qualities makes him 
the most appealing of American heroes, for the reason that 
it makes him the most human. 

Occasionally a great man finds a host of public imita- 
tors. Lincoln was not such a great man. You never 
hear it said of any one that he tries to be like Lincoln. 
You seldom hear of any one who tries to be like Christ. 
But you hear of plenty of men who long to be like Napo- 
leon, to be conquerors, powerful in action, in achieve- 
ment, in dominance over other men. I know several 

24 



LINCOLN 

men who admire Napoleon so intensely that to them he 
is like a god. They collect books relating to him and 
relics. Always they are dominating characters and 
through their admiration their desire to dominate thrives. 
There are men who pride themselves on looking like 
Napoleon and who cultivate the resemblance by letting 
a lock of hair fall over their foreheads and by displaying 
an arrogant demeanor. On the whole, the example of 
Napoleon has not worked for good. Arrogance is its 
note, a detestable quality. 

The keynote of Christ's example is humility. 

In our competitive life humility is at a discount. 

Humility is included in the homely qualities of 
Lincoln. 

And yet, somewhat as the example of Christ has influ- 
enced men, inspiring them, not to worldly achievement, 
but to self-mastery and e very-day service, the example 
of Lincoln must have inspired other Americans, strength- 
ening their courage, renewing their faith. 

It is wholesome for us to bear in mind that during a 
long period Lincoln was, to many people, a comic figure. 
When he was nominated for the Presidency he was derided 
by many highly esteemed Americans. They applied a 
severe term of reproach to him, "wood-chopper." They 
despised him because in his youth he had done hard 
manual labor. He had not chopped wood as Gladstone 
chopped trees, in patrician fashion, for sheer love of work 
as a sport and as a means of exercise. At the time wood- 
chopping was the only work he could get to do. 

In England they held Lincoln up to scorn and contempt, 
that is, the superior classes. To them he was a barbarian, 
an outsider. His final martyrdom, a violent death at the 
hands of a poor, misguided young enthusiast for a lost 

25 



LINCOLN 

cause, was as nothing compared with the abuse he en- 
dured during the years of his greatest service to the nation 
and to the world. England saw her blunder and offered 
amends. The apology of Punch, just after the death of 
Lincoln, for its misunderstanding and ridicule of him, is 
one of the most beautiful things in literature. 

Shocking as the circumstances were, the end of Lincoln 
had a sublimity becoming his character. And the world 
was brought to a realization of his qualities all the more 
keen because it saw they had never before been so needed 
by the nation. 

The divine mystery of bereavement was never more 
impressive than in this taking away, never more insoluble. 

It is inspiring to see where Lincoln was led by his simple 
wisdom. It made him supreme as a man, as a statesman, 
as an orator, as a writer. 

His simplicity seemed to unlock all doors for him, to 
offer inspired guidance. And his humor helped to give 
him relief from strain, as well as balance, patience, 
understanding. His Gettysburg address must always 
remain the wonder and the despair of writers. It is the 
perfection of literary technique, of taste, of quiet, noble 
presentation of lofty ideas. It seems almost inconceiv- 
able that it should have been written on the back of an 
envelope while Lincoln was speeding in the train to the 
battlefield. 

Lincoln's life shows the power of being, as compared 
with striving to be, or striving to seem. Lincoln did not 
care how he seemed. He simply was right-minded. The 
rest followed. The marvel of his career is that there is 
nothing in it that is marvelous. We think of him as 
exceptional because the circumstances of his later life 
were dramatic. But he was truly a representative 

26 



LINCOLN 

of a fairly large class of Americans. He stood for sober 
virtues that seldom win wide recognition save when, by 
force of circumstance, they are called out to meet an 
emergency. 

There were unquestionably many Lincolns in this 
country while Lincoln was active. There have been many 
other Lincolns born since Lincoln's death. And there 
are many Lincolns still to be. Here is the hope of our 
representative government, its real security. 

Lincoln was cut down just when he stood ready 
to meet what might have become his greatest oppor- 
tunity for service. How different his influence might 
have made the history of the reconstruction. And 
yet what can we tell by surmising 1 ? Tragic as his 
death was and saddening to the nation, it came at a 
glorious time. It gave the world a life that reached to 
a thrilling climax and, unlike so many great lives, stopped 
there. For this reason the career of Lincoln must always 
convey its lesson the more powerfully. And now, of all 
times, it asks us to reflect on what his attitude would be 
toward the issue before men today, accepted as the most 
vital issue in the history of the world. Fortunately, he 
recognized its importance as far back as fifty years ago 
and unequivocally expressed his opinion: "Labor is 
prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the 
product of labor, and could never have existed if labor 
had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital 
and deserves much the higher consideration." 

If Lincoln were alive now we know where he would 
stand socially and economically. Happily, in a very true 
sense, in his grave he is beyond the reach of the grave. 
"He being dead, yet liveth." His spirit is inspiring the 
Lincolns of today. It will inspire the future Lincolns. 



27 



CARING 

THERE was a boy I used to know in school who 
had great difficulty in speaking. He never could 
express just what he meant and he stammered 
painfully. And yet he had plenty of things to say. I 
used to think that his trouble chiefly resulted from his 
trying to say more than one thing at a time. 

He used to confide to me his distress and his envy of 
those who could speak freely and easily. 

He is now a distinguished lawyer, an able pleader, 
fluent in speech and accurate. 

He got what he wished because he cared so much, 
because he cared enough. 

You must be acquainted with at least one of these boys 
who rig up wireless apparatus on the roof. Some of them 
seem to be very stupid about everything in the world 
except wireless and other matters pertaining to electricity. 
No matter how dull they may seem, let the subject of 
wireless be mentioned and their faces will light up. 
They will become eloquent, inspired. 

In a city of the Middle West there is a man who has an 
extraordinary knowledge of American history. Off-hand 
he can give lists of the cabinets of various Presidents, 
names of figures once prominent in public life and now 
forgotten, as well as odd bits of information, perhaps 
not included in the books. 

I once asked him how he happened to have such a 
wonderful memory. 

He smiled and replied quite frankly: "Oh, I really 
haven't a very good memory. My wife, for example, 
has a very much better memory than I have. She is 

28 



CARING 

always reminding me of things I have forgotten. But 
ever since I was a boy I've liked reading about the history 
of my own country." 

There was a ribald old professor in college who had a 
saying that has stayed in my mind: "It's a great 
thing in this world to have some subject by the tail." 

What the figure lacked in elegance it gained in vigor. 
It suggested careering over the world behind a wild 
animal. 

Caring sends one joyously careering behind an inter- 
est that never ceases to provide the excitement of the 
chase. 

They who lack such an interest are poor indeed. 

In this regard the old educators were sadly off the track. 
They believed in driving the children along the steep and 
rugged road. The harder the road, the fiercer the driving, 
and the better off the children. 

The educators of today know better. They know how 
joyously the children will bound over the road when they 
really care about their tasks. 

For where there is caring, tasks cease to be tasks. 

Those boys who are crazy over wireless don't think 
of their labor over their apparatus as a task. 

It is all sport. 

And just as caring is the key to education, it is the key to 
living. 

There is that oft-quoted saying of Goethe's that in 
traveling we get as much out of a new place as we take 
there. 

We get as much out of our every-day relations as we 
give. 

We get as much as we care to get. 

Most of our denials are self-denials. 

29 



CARING 

And yet most of our conscious self-denials are not self- 
denials at all. They are rewards. 

It all depends on what we really care for. We get it 
if we only care enough. 

But to this law there is one supreme exception: If we 
care simply and solely for ourselves we get nothing. 

Fortunately there is no such thing as caring simply 
and solely for ourselves. Every one of us cares for some- 
thing outside ourselves or for some one. 

If such were not the case death would speedily follow. 

Our well-being is the direct result of our wise caring. 

So it is important for us to care wisely. 

Then we shall care more and more. 

For caring grows by caring, just as evil develops more 
evil and goodness flowers into goodness more abundant. 

If we cared wisely and deeply everything in the world 
would straighten itself out. We should be amazed at the 
change in ourselves. Then we should marvel at the 
change in the people about us. 

Yes, caring is the whole secret. 

By its power it keeps the universe from falling into 
chaos. 

This power we call attraction, which is, of course, 
merely another word for caring. 

And caring is the way by which the world approximates 
harmon}^ and happiness. 

It is only when we have learned to care that we can 
delve into the inexhaustible richness of living. 

Look at the people about you, the people you know best. 

Select from among them a few that you know to be 
happy. 

We all know at least a few people who may be called 
happy. 

30 



CARING 

Let us see if we can find out their secret. 

In every instance we shall surely find that they have 
one quality in common, a genius for caring. 

I have in mind one such person, a woman, still young, 
though not young in years. I have known her all my 
life. Always, in spite of bearing her share of trouble, 
she has been happy. 

People say that she has "a happy disposition." 

Her most noticeable quality is her indifference to her- 
self, her unconsciousness. 

She is always thinking of other people and thinking of 
them pleasantly. 

For her all people have a great attraction. On trains, 
in street cars, on pleasure boats, she is continually falling 
into smiling conversation with her neighbors, people that 
she has never seen before, that she will probably never 
see again. 

And just as other people attract her, she attracts other 
people. 

She gives generously. Richly she receives. 

The whole explanation lies in caring. 

A lawyer in New York City has a great fondness for 
languages. He has a fine ear for niceties of speech and 
the imitative instinct that so often goes with a fine ear. In 
his pocket he carries a little book that he studies whenever 
he has a few moments' leisure. In these moments he 
gleans the rudiments of various languages. And when- 
ever he gets a chance he puts them into practice. 

For example, he speaks Italian with the men who 
black his boots in the morning, and French and German 
with his French and German clients. 

Languages are his chief diversion. He really loves 
them. In them he sees all kinds of little human expres- 
sions that most of us who have perfunctorily studied this 
language or that wholly miss. 

31 



CARING 

It is wonderful what caring can do and what it can see 
and what it can attract to itself and achieve. 

In London I became interested in a curious old man I 
used to see on cold winter days feeding the birds in Hyde 
Park. 

One morning I ventured to speak to him. 

Soon I found myself deep in a talk about the birds. 
He did most of the talking. I was amazed by his knowl- 
edge of the habits of the birds, of his marvelous under- 
standing of birds, and by the delight he took in everything 
relating to birds. 

And then I saw that those birds were the great interest 
in his life. 

He cared for them and he felt that they needed his 
care. 

That care gave his existence a meaning. 

It also explained why the birds flew about him without 
fear. 

One often hears people say, "I don't care." 

And one often hears the words spoken as if they con- 
ferred some credit on the speaker, as if the speaker showed 
he was superior to caring. 

When we cease to care, we are nearly always the 
losers. 

Those who care least in the world are the most to be 
pitied. 

"I don't care," may be one of the most dreadful of all 
expressions. 

Often we hear people say, or we hear of people who 
say, "I don't care to live any longer." 

If we analyzed those words we should find they meant 
that the speaker renounced everything beautiful and 
worthy of being cared for. 

32 



CARING 

And if we knew the speaker we should find that his 
interests centered in himself. He was the whole world. 
When his interests went wrong the whole world went 
wrong. 

Of course, when caring ceases, life is virtually at an 
end. 

So we should guard this faculty of caring. 

We should know it for the precious thing that it is. 

Just now, among the echoes of the social unrest, we hear 
a good deal about caring and not caring. The thing that 
used to be ranked among the things most worthy of being 
cared for has fallen into disrepute. 

There are many workers who declare that they don't 
care for their work. They even go farther. They 
denounce those of their fellow-workers who say they do 
care for their work. They say it is shameful for such 
workers to care for their work. The reason is that such 
work is not worthy of being cared for. It is degrading, or 
crippling, or inadequately paid. And in most cases what 
they say is true. 

What was obviously a blessing to mankind, a source of 
absorbing interest, of noble achievement, has been turned 
into a curse. 

Men, once free to use their faculties in wholesome 
labor, are now, by thousands, enslaved, reduced to being 
mere tenders of machines. 

That this condition should be so is a curse to the world. 

And all because what should be an inspiration to caring 
has become an inspiration to not caring, to hating. 

The man who cannot love his work cannot love his 
life. 

How can it be that one of the greatest blessings of the 
world has been turned into one of the greatest curses'? 
Why have so many human beings, women and children 

33 



CARING 

as well as men, had their lives cursed with degrading, ill- 
paid labor? 

Simply, of course, because men, the most successful, 
have put this curse upon them. 

And why have the successful put this curse on their 
fellow-creatures ? 

Because they do not care for their fellow-creatures. 

Because they care only for themselves. 

If they cared for their fellow-creatures as they cared 
for themselves they couldn't endure putting such a burden 
on their fellow-creatures. 

Yes, caring is everything. 

Centuries ago the thought was expressed in words so 
familiar to us that we seldom stop to take in their full 
meaning : 

" 'Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.' This 
is the first and great commandment. 

"And the second is like unto this : 'Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself.' " 



34 



AUTHORITY 

A FRIEND said to me the other day : "When I went 
through the galleries of Europe I was amazed at 
the difference in the work of the old masters of 
different periods. The master of one period and his 
followers would paint in one style, and the master of 
another period and his followers would paint in another 
style. The difference made me think about authority. 
Each master was the authority of his day. His opinions 
on art were law. They stood for orthodoxy and for cul- 
ture, the highest expression in art of the time. Those who 
did not agree were the outsiders. Many people who did 
not understand either accepted the master's dictation 
or pretended to accept it. Then some other fellow 
would come along and, with another set of ideas, would 
establish the same authority, together with the same 
tyranny." 

Those remarks started me on a train of thought. Not 
only in art, but in science, in literature, in all the depart- 
ments of life, may be found similar conditions. There 
are always those who establish themselves in authority. 
Their word is law. Those who disagree are subjects for 
contempt or pity. 

I often think with some amusement of an experience I 
once had with a group of French and English and Ameri- 
can painters in a small village of Normandy. Like most 
painters, they loved their work. They were enthusiasts. 
Most of them had been attracted to this village by the 
presence there of a celebrated impressionist. So most of 
them were impressionists. Those who did not believe in 
impressionism they were inclined to regard either as 

35 



AUTHORITY 

enemies or as poor, ignorant creatures. Whenever an 
opinion relating to art was presented by one who did not 
sympathize with their views they would administer severe 
punishment. 

On one occasion, at dinner, a traveling Englishman 
ventured to praise a certain picture that had been ex- 
hibited in the recent Salon in Paris, by a celebrated 
painter. 

When, in his innocence, he had expatiated upon its 
beauties, one of the impressionists fixed a reproving eye 
on him and said: 

"You really liked that picture, did you*?" 

The Englishman looked a little astonished. "Cer- 
tainly," he said, with a flash, suggesting that he was 
offended at having his words doubted. 

"Then God help you! " said the impressionist. 

In this matter of opinion we all do a good deal of pity- 
ing. And most of such pity is not only unnecessary, but 
harmful as well. It reflects discredit, not on those we pity, 
but on ourselves. 

I know people who become furious for the simple rea- 
son that others share opinions different from their own. 
They would be resentful if they knew that the others felt 
in exactly the same way toward them. 

Even among scientific men, where we might expect to 
find more breadth of mind, one sees the same tendencies 
at work. There are scientific men who feel intense hatred 
for other scientific men simply and solely on account of 
difference in opinion. They will even go to the extreme 
of lying about one another's opinions in order to enhance 
the apparent superiority of their own opinions. 

And yet those men know, just as you and I know, that 
science is continually contradicting itself, that the discov- 
ery of today may be modified or wholly denied or made 
absurd by the discovery of tomorrow. 

36 



AUTHORITY 



It is among religions that we have the most right to expect 
breadth of view. For in itself religion is breadth. 

We may forgive much to human weakness and to 
enthusiasm for the cause of art, or literature, or science. 
But surely, religion would not ask for any such tolerance. 
It is in itself a bulwark against human weakness. Its 
teachings are essentially founded on love and on self- 
forgetfulness. 

Yet what do we find when we go among people who 
take special pride in their religious belief? 

We find that as a rule they are intolerant. 

Though they profess to believe there is but one God, 
they make gods of themselves. 

And the gods they make are cruel gods. 



37 



THE REJECTORS 

IN ONE of our big cities there lives a very rich man. 
He was born to wealth and he has always had the 
opportunities that wealth brings. He is very well 
educated and, of course, superlatively cultivated. And he 
has a large acquaintance among the important people of 
the earth. 

Nevertheless he is one of the most unhappy men imagi- 
nable. The reason is that he has the habit of expecting 
human beings to live up to his standards. With severity 
he judges the people that he meets. If they do not satisfy 
him he rejects them. 

He has grown more and more severe in his attitude 
toward life. Consequently, life has grown more and more 
severe toward him. 

And yet, in spite of his years of bitter experience, he 
has not yet discovered the truth of the saying which now- 
adays, in varying forms, we hear echoed and re-echoed, 
that life is a mirror, reflecting back to us ourselves. 

There is a literary man of my acquaintance who takes a 
similar attitude. He insists that all the people he makes 
friends with shall be interesting, that is, intellectually 
interesting. The people he does not find intellectually 
interesting he despises and speaks of with scorn. Conse- 
quently, he often finds himself very isolated. He also 
suffers a good deal from his own scorn. 

In spite of all his intuition and knowledge of the world, 
he does not know that scorn is a poison. 

We are all aware of the existence of that large class of 
persons who reject others on account of considerations of 
birth or social connections or wealth. 

In fact, as one looks about, it is appalling to discover 
how much rejecting there is in the world. 

38 



THE REJECTORS 

And still more amazing is the pride which people 
take in rejecting. They seem to think that reject- 
ing reflects credit on themselves. The more people they 
reject the more convinced they become of their own su- 
periority. 

Meanwhile they remain serenely unconscious that, 
through their rejections, they are putting a tax upon them- 
selves, sustaining a loss. 

And yet I have noticed that the rejectors of the world 
are always alert for themselves. They show remarkable 
skill in securing what they believe to be their advantage. 
Nevertheless they are invariably losers. In nearly 
every instance if you will watch you will find that they 
are unhappy. 

Meanwhile, those who never think about rejecting 
others, who accept others as human beings exactly like 
themselves, and get the best out of the people about 
them, go comfortably through life. 

After all, it is a matter of adjustment. The moment 
we demand that the world shall adjust itself to us we lose. 
The moment we make up our minds that the only course 
is to adjust ourselves to the world we gain. 

Sometimes it seems to me that here lies the whole secret. 

It is what the literary folk call a paradox. 

It is caring, not for oneself, but for the people and the 
things outside. 

And the less one cares for oneself and the more one 
cares for the things and the people outside the more one 
gains for oneself. 

In our acquaintance we all know rejectors. Sometimes 
they reject us, either openly or covertly. 

Often we hear them boast of their capacity for being 
bored. They forget that it invariably accompanies the 
capacity for boring. 

39 



THE REJECTORS 

As soon as you hear any one say that he is easily bored 
you may be sure that it is easy for him to bore others, and 
that others often suffer in his presence. 

For superiority that is conscious of itself is a burden, 
not merely to oneself alone, but to all those obliged to 
meet it. 

At this moment I am reminded of a friend who during 
the past few years has sustained bitter trials and disap- 
pointments. He has been going through one of those 
strange periods when troubles come not singly, but in 
battalions. 

Some of his relatives and close friends worry about him 
and pity him. But their pity and their worry are wasted. 
For he can rise above any trouble. 

The reason is that a life-long habit of forgetting him- 
self and becoming absorbed in interests outside himself 
has given him freedom. He has never been a rejector 
of good. He has accepted it or it has come his way. He 
has rejected only evil. 

He recently sustained a terrible loss by death. It was 
generally expected that he would be crushed with grief. 
He was grieved, deeply and sincerely; but his interest in 
things outside him saved him from being prostrated. 

Those who started to offer him sympathy and to grieve 
with him were surprised and in some instances shocked 
that he did not show more grief. 

They thought that his attitude showed indifference. It 
did show a noble indifference to self, one of the hardest 
things in the world to reach and one of the richest in its 
, rewards, the saving grace. 



40 



CRIPPLES 

RHEUMATISM has descended upon a friend. Once 
the liveliest of men, he now walks with a stick, 
"slowly and painfully. Fortunately he is a philoso- 
pher. "There are compensations in everything," he said 
to me recently. "I never before realized what a blessed 
thing it was to be able to walk. I see people in the street 
walking easily and jauntily and I have to remind myself 
with some astonishment that once I could walk in that 
way. I envy those people and I envy myself as I used to 
be. I wonder why it is that I didn't realize how lucky I 
was." 

His eyes twinkled with humor and even in the twinge 
of pain that suddenly expressed itself in his face, there 
was the light of a smile. 

"But think how much you will enjoy walking when 
you get well again," I said. 

The twinge of pain had passed and he was having mo- 
mentary relief. "Of course, I know I shall get well; but I 
don't feel that I shall. Can't you appreciate the differ- 
ence'? However, even in being a cripple there are com- 
pensations. It makes me realize how many cripples there 
are in the world and how little sympathy I used to have 
for them. Now they come up to me, the cripples of the 
present and the people who used to be cripples, and they 
tell me what they have been through. It's really a com- 
fort. It's surprising," he concluded, after yielding to 
another twinge, "how many unsuspected cripples we 
have all about us. It's only because they know that I am 
in a position to sympathize with them that they reveal 
themselves to me." 

It is easy for most of us to sympathize with the physical 
cripples. Consciously or unconsciously we all try to make 

41 



CRIPPLES 

up to them in such small ways as we can for what they 
have lost. But for the unsuspected cripples how little we 
can do. They live in a world apart. It is only by a sensi- 
tive imagination that we can reach them. Often, indeed, 
they don't wish to be reached. They would resent intru- 
sion. Many of them, too, would be indignant if they 
knew they were suspected of being cripples. 

There is a very brilliant man of my acquaintance whose 
life is devoted to intellectual work. For many years he 
has been a lecturer in a great university. He has strong 
opinions which he asserts with great vigor. Those opinions 
that disagree with his he ruthlessly assaults. The same 
ruthlessness he deals out to the persons who hold the op- 
posing opinions. Naturally, his teaching has tended to 
make him more and more dogmatic. It has apparently 
never occurred to him that there may be more than one 
way of looking at the same thing, that there may be, in 
fact, many ways. The only way that he can understand 
or be patient with is his own way. Consequently, he 
causes a great deal of ill feeling about him and he is con- 
tinually suffering from ill feeling himself. 

In his attitude toward the world he betrays his amaze- 
ment and bewilderment that people don't agree with 
him- and dislike him. He feels sure that if he could 
only force his opinions on society the whole world 
would be set right. Each year of his life he grows 
more pessimistic and more bitter and despairing. He 
is, of course, a perfect example of the intellectual 
cripple, of the man imprisoned within himself. Men- 
tally he is exactly like my friend temporarily afflicted 
with rheumatism, only his case is much worse. It 
does not even permit him to go out of the house. It has 
made him a chronic invalid, an intellectual shut-in. 

We are all in a sense intellectual cripples, shut into our 
consciousness, held back by our own bounds from reaching 

42 



CRIPPLES 

out into the world. We may be able to reach out in this 
direction or that, and yet fail lamentably when we try to 
reach out in some other direction. Or perhaps our failure 
lies in our never wishing to reach out, in never realizing 
the importance of trying. 

We often hear people express their satisfaction with 
themselves, their lack of dependence on other people, their 
complete absence of interest in others. It is exactly as 
if a prisoner were to boast of the beauty and charm of 
his prison life, and were to declare that, for him, it was 
the ideal way of living. How we should pity him ! And 
how we should blame the society that had drawn him 
down to such abasement! 

We never think of blaming society for the intellectual 
cripples which it has created all about us, the self-satisfied 
ones of the earth, enjoying temporary advantage which 
they may have reached through their very lack of sym- 
pathy and through the opportunities for the exploitation 
of their fellow men which they find provided by society 
itself. 

But it is toward our moral cripples that we have shown 
the least consideration. Afflicted as they are, far worse 
than the physical cripples, whom we are so eager to pity 
and to help, the moment we detect them we heap upon 
them more affliction. It is as if we were to take the crip- 
pled body and, in those parts where they have been mer- 
cifully allowed to be sound, were to try to injure them 
further. 

And yet, deep down in our own minds, where we keep 
our little personal secrets, we know that in some way each 
of us is a moral cripple. But when we speak of moral 
cripples we are very careful not to identify ourselves with 
them. To hear most of us talk one would think we were 
not in any way related to the moral cripples. We call 
them names that we could not possibly apply to ourselves. 

43 



CRIPPLES 

We denounce them. We punish them. We segregate 
them in places where their moral weakness will thrive and 
where they will be exposed to other moral weakness. 

Did you ever think of the marvels of modern surgery? 
They give the promise of saving most of the physical crip- 
ples of the world. Already, cripples who would once have 
been considered incurables are now finding complete cure. 
It looks as if the time may not be far distant when there 
will be very few physical cripples, perhaps none. 

And while this wonderful work is going on what are 
we doing for our intellectual cripples and for our moral 
cripples? 



44 



"BEATING PEOPLE DOWN" 

SEVERAL years ago in New York City I went to a 
dinner party where there were several guests 
known for their wit. I expected to have a fine 
evening. Most of the guests were fairly well acquainted 
and quickly showed that they felt at ease. Among them 
was a woman, known for her wealth, a social authority. 
A few moments after the dinner began there was general 
talk. Then a subject was introduced which greatly 
excited the social authority. She leaned forward in her 
seat and at once took possession of the talk. Those who 
disagreed with her she silenced by her frank expressions 
of resentment and of conviction that she was in the right. 
Quickly she reduced that table to subjection. During 
the rest of the meal she did most of the talking. When- 
ever a subject came up that interested her she would utter 
a pronouncement which made further discussion impos- 
sible. 

Occasionally I would catch very subtle glances, not 
exactly exchanges of glance, but veiled looks, which told 
me that this woman was doing exactly what she had 
often done before. 

But the woman had no suspicion. She went on 
excitedly, taking great pleasure in telling us what we 
ought to believe. 

An old-fashioned expression I often used to hear as 
a boy is, "Beating people down." There was a man 
who used to come to our house, and as soon as he left 
some one would be sure to say something like, "What 
an unpleasant habit he has of beating people down." 

To this day I think of the expression whenever I meet 
any one who, for the sake of establishing his opinions, 

45 



BEATING PEOPLE DOWN 

undertakes to beat people down because they venture to 
express their opinions. 

It must be admitted that those who "beat people 
down" add to the interest and excitement of life. 
Where they dwell there is no dullness, no monotony. 
Their fondness for strongly expressing opinions some- 
times gives them the reputation of being strong characters. 
If self-assertion is an expression of strength they surely are 
strong. But there are those who believe that the higher 
proof of strength is to be found, not in self-assertion, but 
in self-control. In this quality those who beat others 
down are woefully lacking. They strive to control others, 
never themselves. And they seldom stop to consider 
that the stronger their control of others becomes the 
weaker their self-control is sure to be. 

Those who beat others down must look upon life as a 
kind of arena. To them each day brings its conflict. 
Wherever they go they find themselves involved in argu- 
ment and antagonism. For, naturally, they are continu- 
ally meeting people whose opinions do not jibe with their 
own and whose feelings, by being so ruthlessly assaulted, 
are severely damaged. In many cases these people, on 
finding themselves beaten down, become exceedingly 
resentful. And resentment in turn creates in the mind of 
the assailants further resentment. So it is not surprising 
that natures continually trying to beat down other natures 
often involve themselves in serious complications, some- 
times ending in disaster. 

Such consequences are, of course, uncommon in our 
more civilized communities. But the beating down goes 
on there just the same. Often the greatest intellectual 
despots are to be found among those who are considered 
the most civilized. They are both women and men who 
become angry the very instant they hear expressed an 

4 6 



BEATING PEOPLE DOWN 

opinion they don't agree with. They feel a desire, not 
only to refute the opinion, but to punish the one that 
holds the opinion. 

We have all been present at scenes where perfectly 
innocent people have been severely chastised as a result 
of an honest expression of thought. Occasionally it is 
amusing to see on their faces expressions of bewilderment 
and dismay and anger. And yet it is pitiful, too. Occa- 
sionally they will be too startled to reply. On the other 
hand, if they have themselves any of the instinct to beat 
down, they at once indulge in furious warfare. 

When we know well those who like to beat others down 
we have a certain protection. We become careful. If we 
love peace we hold back those opinions that are likely to 
create a disturbance. On the other hand, however, we 
can never be perfectly secure, for we can never be certain 
just how far we can go or just which subjects are to be 
avoided. With some people there is never safety. The 
mere mention on our part of a name may excite wrath, for 
among those who habitually beat down others, the names 
of people become associated with opinions that have to be 
immediately annihilated. 

Perhaps the greatest harm done by the habit of "beating 
people down" is that among peace-lovers and the timid 
it tends to encourage deceit. Rather than get into trouble 
there are many who will go so far as to deny some of their 
most cherished views. There is a still larger class who, 
while holding to their opinions, will resort to insidious 
methods to escape from exposing themselves to rebuke. 

In either case the consequences are deplorable, destroy- 
ing that spirit of frankness and of good fellowship and of 
trust so essential to wholesome and happy social relations. 

Incidentally, the habit of "beating people down" dam- 
ages the quality of talk. 

47 



BEATING PEOPLE DOWN 

It also tends to silence many of those whose opinions 
may be most valuable. 

We have all had the experience of being in groups, 
where the most interesting people were given no chance, 
where the talk was controlled by those who mainly 
echoed, and rattled, and noisily asserted. For, almost 
invariably, those who have the best things to say, the 
result of quiet observings and thinkings, are the slowest 
to push themselves forward, the readiest to yield. They 
never indulge in "beating people down." 



4 8 



THE KINDNESS OF THE POOR 

ELLEN TERRY, during an American tour, pre- 
sented a remarkably fine play from the Dutch, 
called "The Good Hope." She appeared as an old 
fisherwoman who gave up to the sea everything she loved 
in life. When loss on loss had fallen upon her, she lost 
her last son, her favorite, the hope of her age. To save 
money, the owners of the vessel the boy was forced to ship 
on had failed to make reasonable provision for safety. 
They had, of course, protected themselves by insurance. 
So to them the foundering of the ship was of little concern. 
At the close of the play the old woman was seen in the 
office of the ship owners and was presented by one of the 
ship owners' kind-hearted women folk with a bowl of 
soup. Very respectfully and gratefully she accepted it. 
Then, slowly and with dignity, carrying the bowl in both 
hands, she walked out of the office, the embodiment of 
meek and lowly suffering. 

If Ellen Terry had done nothing else in her whole 
career, the way she played that little scene would have 
shown her to be a great actress. Only a fine and sym- 
pathetic spirit could have conceived and realized the 
character under such circumstances. The old woman, 
crossing the stage in her cheap clothes and her heavy 
wooden shoes, will always remain with me as one of the 
wonderful achievements of acting. It illustrated far 
more vividly than any word could do the patience of 
the poor with the rich, their forbearance, their kindness. 

In Europe the situation is more plain than in this coun- 
try. I shall never forget the amusement I felt on my 
first day in London when I rode in an elevator, or, as 
they say over there, in a "lift." There were several 
others in the car. As we went from floor to floor and 

49 



THE KINDNESS OF THE POOR 

as some of us passed out, the elevator man would say, 
with an air of profound respect, "Thank you." 

That little incident was typical of many incidents that 
I was to witness in England and on the Continent. 
They all expressed what seemed to me a strange attitude. 
Those people showed that they were grateful for being 
allowed to live. For this privilege they felt that they must 
show their superiors all kinds of gratuitous courtesies. 

At that time we were having the bicycle craze. I 
made several trips on a wheel in England and in France. 
It was both amusing and pathetic to note the deferential 
kindness of the poor wherever we went. They appar- 
ently thought because we had leisure to go tearing about 
the country we must be in some way worthy of special 
consideration. In France, as we passed, old women would 
bob quaintly as we passed and say, "Good day, gentle- 
men and ladies." 

In the etiquette books there is one consideration in regard 
to manners that we never read about, what we owe from 
the example of the poor. The assumption seems to be 
that it is the well-to-do that have the best manners. 
Here is one of those illusions that we accept as truths 
simply because we don't stop to think about them. As if 
there could be any manners in the world worse than those 
that either openly or covertly convey the sense of 
patronage ! 

For pure kindness, for the resignation of self in favor 
of others, there are no manners that can compare with the 
manners of the poor. 

Sometimes people complain of the familiarity of infe- 
riors. At the slightest intimation that an inferior is 
growing familiar they are likely to show great resentment. 
But the familiarity of the poor is very slight as compared 

5o 



THE KINDNESS OF THE POOR 

with the familiarity of the well-to-do in their attitude 
toward the poor. Indeed, advantage opens the door to 
all kinds of familiarity with those less fortunate, intru- 
sion into private affairs, the asking of intimate, per- 
sonal questions, the giving of unsolicited advice, and the 
use of first names. One of the quickest ways by which 
superiority is asserted and established is by means of 
familiar address. But the inferior must never take the 
same liberties. On the contrary, they must show here, as 
in so many other situations in life, patience and kindness. 

In nearly all the affairs of life the poor are constantly 
showing kindness to those more fortunate than them- 
selves. I have even seen them give up seats in street cars 
to the better-dressed, though they have paid the same 
amount of carfare. And I have seen them show wonder- 
ful forbearance when the better-dressed have betrayed 
annoyance or resentment at being obliged to sit beside 
them. I once heard a man, a well-dressed man, too, give 
a fashionably attired woman a severe reprimand for 
behavior of this kind. To her companion, dressed in 
expensive clothes like herself, she openly spoke of her 
annoyance at being obliged to herd with "such awful 
people." "If you don't want to herd with such awful 
people," the man exclaimed, "you ought not to ride in a 
public conveyance. You ought to ride in your own car- 
riage." 

Some of the ill-clad who looked on smiled. But most 
of them merely showed astonishment. 

The poor are always at a disadvantage. They are 
always giving to those better off. Even in church you 
will find them in what we call "the poorest places." 
Whenever they thrust themselves forward, instead of 
being welcomed because of their needs, they are resented. 
And if, as occasionally happens, they forget their man- 

51 



THE KINDNESS OF THE POOR 

ners, they are treated as if they were habitual and out- 
rageous offenders. The truth is that they are the most 
retiring and the most obliging and the kindest people in 
the world. They are continually reminded of what is 
given them. But the world, till lately, has been unaware 
of how much they give, how unselfish they are, how 
prodigal. 



52 



"FLOURISHES ADDED ON" 

SINCE I heard Professor George Santayana's phrase 
it has occurred to me many times. It finds a wide 
variety of application. It represents a vast amount 
of superfluous energy in life and in art, which, after all, is 
essentially life's reflection. If we could avoid "flourishes 
added on" art would be much more beautiful and satis- 
fying, much wider spread, much more appreciated and 
enjoyed. And life would be far simpler. 

The other night I went to see the performance of a 
popular play, given by actors supposed to be expert. 
The play passed for a representation of life. But, in 
many ways, the representation was false. It consisted 
largely of "flourishes added on." The dramatist, instead 
of being faithful to human experience, thought he could 
improve on it by the introduction of impossible incidents 
and unnatural representation of character. The actors, 
too, had their "flourishes added on." Perhaps they might 
have found an excuse in their playing according to the 
spirit of the author. And yet, through their affectations, 
they made the play seem all the more insincere and unreal. 
That evening at the theater gave me a keen realization 
of the folly of "flourishes added on." In the drama, so 
many of our plays and so much of our acting consist of 
such flourishes. As I watched from my seat I wondered 
why these were so assiduously cultivated. Perhaps, I 
reflected, because they seemed hard. Truth to nature 
would seem to be easy, like all sincere art. ' 

In every-day life we meet people who resemble that 
playwright and those actors. They are not satisfied with 
being themselves. They feel that they must have "flour- 
ishes added on." It may be their speech that is affected, 

53 



FLOURISHES ADDED ON 

or their manners, or their ideas. Their pretenses are 
constantly getting in the way. They apparently think 
that they can make the false seem not only like the true, 
but better. The fact is, of course, that the false can never 
seem like the true and can never be better. The "flourishes 
added on" must reveal themselves in their real nature, as 
pretenses. Instead of being the expression of natural 
qualities, they have their origin in deceit. 

So much of the writing at the present time is obscured 
and weakened by "flourishes added on." There are 
writers who are encouraged by their readers to acquire 
and develop such flourishes. They finally become un- 
aware of the difference between the real in writing and 
the false. 

When I was in college, in one of our courses, we spent 
several weeks in studying Carlyle. At the end of that 
period we had to write compositions on some subject 
related to our author. It was amusing to see how many 
Carlyles were developed in that class, that is, Carlyles 
in manner. So far as I can remember, there was no 
Carlyle in originality and power of thinking. What 
those students imitated was simply the peculiarities in 
Carlyle' s style. Now those peculiarities expressed Car- 
lyle. But as soon as they were assumed by the imita- 
tors they became comic affectations, "flourishes added 
on." 

Those essays gave our instructor a chance to deliver a 
homily on the importance of being oneself in writing as 
in every other expression. 

It is true, however, that, in writing, many people 
develop by means of "flourishes added on." Through 
imitating others they find themselves. The trouble is 
the imitators often fail to break through to themselves. 
They remain imitators all their lives, expressing them- 
selves falsely by means of "flourishes added on." 

54 



FLOURISHES ADDED ON 

In architecture the "flourishes added on" are partic- 
ularly absurd. There they stand, ostensibly as orna- 
ments, but wholly unnecessary excrescences, nearly always 
hideous. In looking at them we can see the absurdity 
of all the flourishes that have no reason for being, that 
do not express the meaning of the thing they belong to. 
Of recent years, however, there has been a great improve- 
ment in architecture. Compare, for example, the old- 
fashioned houses in most of the American cities with the 
new. The more pretentious those old-fashioned houses 
are, the more absurd are the "flourishes added on." They 
represent one of those strange reactions from really good 
architecture that make some people believe that progress 
is only an illusion. 

One might think that the simplicity and the charm of 
the Colonial period would have established good archi- 
tecture in this country for all time. But fashion soon 
destroyed most of its graces. Now we are going back 
to it and to those other architectural forms that begin 
with utility, and express themselves simply and naturally 
in beauty. 

There is a certain pathos in those cheap little houses 
that give fantastic, almost gay imitations of the houses 
of the rich. In most instances the models are bad. 
The imitations emphasize the original pretentiousness 
and superfluity of ornamentation. The gaiety they express 
soon becomes physically unreal. The tawdriness that 
appears with time turns the architectural into mockery. 
Then it grows plain that the "flourishes added on" were 
added to give a transient and wholly fictitious value. 

Most "flourishes added on" are, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, used for the purpose of deception. I once 
heard a well-known literary woman criticized for her 
extravagant affectations of speech. One of her closest 
friends who happened to be present proceeded to defend 

55 



FLOURISHES ADDED ON 



her. "She is affected," this friend remarked, "and her 
affectations were deliberately assumed when she began 
to be successful a great many years ago. She had been 
brought up in the country and she had acquired very 
bad habits of speaking. She knew that they would 
make her ridiculous. Instead of correcting them gradu- 
ally and acquiring good speech, she assumed that arti- 
ficial way of talking." 

The frankness of this explanation was somewhat 
extraordinary. It seemed to me to express a blunder 
that is commonly made. That literary woman might 
have profited by imitating good speech. But unfortu- 
nately her knowledge of speech was not sufficient to 
enable her to choose a good model. So she did as most 
conscious imitators do. She imitated "flourishes added 
on," in this instance, flourishes of a particularly absurd 
kind. 



56 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SAYING "NO" 

WHEN Tolstoy was a young man he made a 
rather odd resolution. Whenever any one inter- 
rupted him at work he would say quite frankly 
that he was busy and he would go on working. He had 
in mind, of course, those transient interruptions that dis- 
tract us all and cause us so much waste of time and 
energy. He was living, too, in a period before the inven- 
tion of the telephone. 

So many of us, from sheer weakness, have not the 
courage to follow Tolstoy's example. If we did we should 
be spared a great deal of vexation and loss of time. So 
often we sacrifice duty to a false ideal of politeness. If 
we spoke up frankly, no reasonable person would be 
injured. By yielding, we often make ourselves pay, and 
make others pay, too. The neglect of the task in hand 
may cause a long series of disturbances. 

To do the things, wrongly considered impolite, may 
require a good deal of courage. Similarly, to say "No" 
may be one of the hardest tasks in the world. But it is 
a task that we must learn to perform. And merely 
performing it is not enough. If it is done at all it ought 
to be well done. There. is such a thing, however, as tak- 
ing pleasure in saying "No" through sheer love of denial. 
Some people enjoy denying others. They are like those 
who have a strong inclination for disagreeing. They 
would rather say "No" than "Yes." The process gives 
them the illusion of power, perhaps of superiority. In 
such cases the ability to say "No" obviously ceases to be 
a virtue. 

Lately I have been reading the essays of a moralist 
who dwells on the importance of saying "No." He 

57 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SAYING NO 

seems to regard it as the basis of morality. Here he 
agrees with most moralists. He reminds me of my ear- 
liest lessons in ethics, consisting almost wholly of pro- 
hibitions. 

I sometimes wonder if such moralists, in spite of their 
being so unquestionably on the right path, don't do more 
harm than good. They make morality very unattractive. 
And quite unintentionally, of course, they make the 
violation of the moral law seem alluring. 

As a matter of fact, when we look at right and wrong 
squarely in the face we find that the right course is, in 
the end, at any rate, always the more pleasurable, the 
only course that brings returns worth having. 

There are situations in life where a plain "No" is 
necessary and a vigorous "No," too. But they are 
comparatively rare. Indeed, where "No" is used some 
other word or expression may be far more advisable and 
yet produce the required result. I have heard people 
say "No" out loud at times when it is a gross rudeness, 
when an expression of thanks and of regret at being 
obliged to decline an invitation would be the suitable 
reply. In my own acquaintance there is a man who is 
always saying "No" to friendly proffers. These he 
regards as temptations, luring him from his work. From 
his point of view they are indeed temptations; but from 
the point of view of those who make the proffers they are 
not temptations at all. They are signs of good- will. 

It is possible to let "No" become an expression of self- 
indulgence, of disregard for other people's feelings. As 
I write, I am reminded of one of the ablest and one of 
the busiest men I have ever met. The best of his thought 
and energy and nearly all of his time he feels that he 
must devote to his work. But he is wise enough and gen- 
erous enough not to confuse the attractions offered him 

58 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SAYING NO 

by the world outside with temptations. In each offer he 
sees only what is good, that is, the friendly spirit. And 
he responds to it in kind. His little notes, declining 
invitations, are delightful expressions of regret. The 
people who receive them, sometimes, I suspect, those who 
would like to exploit him, are never offended. On the 
contrary, they acquire a fresh realization of the man's 
good-will. 

Many people can avoid the habit of saying "No" and 
yet proceed successfully and happily through life. Those 
who do the most efficient work and contribute most to 
the world's store of good-will are not likely to be included 
among the asserters of a negation. On negations they 
waste little time. Quietly and efficiently they devote 
themselves to what is positive. Instead of denying and 
resenting, they take a sympathetic attitude and they 
accept and develop what is good. They allow themselves 
to be drawn toward the things of life that give the best 
reward. 

Perhaps it is necessary, in the case of many people, 
for the insistence to be placed on self-denial. But there 
is a finer stimulus in the truth so clearly demonstrated by 
Herbert Spencer that every human being best profits, 
not by thinking of himself and considering where his 
advantage lies, but by giving himself freely and eagerly 
to outside things. In other words, egotism, to be really 
successful, must express itself through altruism. One 
might go through life continually saying "No" to temp- 
tations without achieving a character worth having, with- 
out really contributing anything to the world. There is 
something to be said for the spirit of moral adventure, that 
goes resolutely forward, taking risks, seeking for oppor- 
tunities of expression, forgetting all about the petty 
denials, caring only for the worth-while achievements. 

59 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SAYING NO 

There is something almost unwholesome in a continual 
insistence on self-discipline. It carries with it suggestions 
of fear. It is far less stimulating than the attitude of 
affirmation taken, for example, by a man like Robert 
Browning, who knew that life was good, and asked, not 
for less life, with its trials and its temptations, its services 
and its joys, but for more. The fearless man takes little 
interest in denying. He goes out joyously to meet each 
day, and each day he affirms the privilege and the wonder 
of being alive. 



60 



CONTRASTS 

IN NEW YORK CITY one occasionally sees queer 
little horse cars, drawn either by two horses or by one 
horse. There is something amusing about them and 
quaint. They make a startling contrast as they pass those 
brand new sky-scrapers with aeroplane landings on top. 

At one end of the line of progress are the horse cars. 
At the other end are the buildings with their facilities 
for the latest and the most advanced method of loco- 
motion. 

What is most astonishing is that the two should exist 
together, side by side, the proof of progress and the denial 
of progress. 

Here is an illustration of the history of human life. The 
old persists with the new. In the midst of progression we 
may find what looks like retrogression. 

While new ideas are moving the world, we may see 
everywhere expressions of old ideas, generally considered 
obsolete. 

Some of us develop a good deal of resentful feeling 
about just this kind of situation. We think that progress 
ought to be evenly distributed. In much of our talk we 
assume that it is. We call to our aid what we fancy to be 
logic, to prove that retrogression and progression cannot 
possibly go together. 

And yet, so often the things that can't be, according 
to our way of thinking, actually are. 

An acquaintance of mine often says in reply to argu- 
ments: "It ought not to be so, but it is." Occasionally 
he varies the expression by saying: "It can't be so; but 
it is." 

The impossible is often the real, the true. 

61 



CONTRASTS 

Life has a way of disregarding human logic. 

Most of the people that we see about us are exactly 
like the world of progress. No matter how old-fashioned 
they may be, when we get to know them well enough, 
we are sure to be surprised by hearing them express 
modern ideas. Even the most "protected," the most 
"sheltered" lives can't escape the influence far away. 

When we make this kind of discovery, we are likely 
to be pleased. And yet, when we make virtually the 
same discovery, we may be displeased. For example, 
when we hear people we consider advanced expressing 
old-fashioned notions, we are almost certain to be disap- 
pointed, or hurt, or resentful. 

The same law is operating. 

Though we may recognize the law and find interest in 
tracing its working in the things and in the people about 
us, we may yet fail to receive its most important lesson. 

We may remain unaware that, just as the law oper- 
ates in the things and the people that we see, it operates 
in ourselves. 

We can't, however, see ourselves as others see us, no 
matter how hard we may try. There is no getting away 
from the slavery imposed on us by our natures, com- 
pelling us to believe what we believe. The more con- 
scientiously we believe, the more strongly we trust our 
thoughts. It is only by an effort of the will and of the 
imagination that we can force ourselves into an unpreju- 
diced attitude. This effort makes us see that just as people 
about us are in many ways reactionary and prejudiced 
we must be prejudiced and reactionary. 

There are those who say that this kind of thinking is 
bad. It may lead to the weakening of self-confidence. 

So it may. 

But most of us need to have our self-confidence weak- 

62 



CONTRASTS 

ened. For, as a rule, self-confidence is over-confidence, 
and over-confidence leads us to see ourselves out of pro- 
portion. It makes us long to impose ourselves on others, 
to establish our opinions simply and solely because the 
opinions are ours. 

It is only when we have taken our properly modest 
little place in the universe that we can put our opinions 
where they belong. 

Then we shall express ourselves with less emphasis. 
Then we shall listen with more respect to the opinions of 
others. 

Incidentally, we shan't be without reward, for we shall 
discover that the old emphasis actually got in the way of 
our opinions. It made it, not easier, but harder, for our 
opinions to be accepted by others. It introduced noise 
as a diversion, and all the vanity and egotism that go 
with noisy assurance, throwing up the wall of resent- 
ment. 

Moreover, the new method will tend to make those 
others less self-assertive, for it will make the others more 
ready to receive, more sympathetic. 

Where there is apparent loss, there will be real gain. 



63 



THE READING OF FICTION 

SHORTLY before death Charles A. Dana was listen- 
ing to the complaints of an old friend about the 
dullness of human existence. "The trouble with 
you is that you don't read novels," said Mr. Dana. "So 
you miss one of the greatest pleasures in life." Then 
he went on to explain that no matter how busy he might 
be, he spent a part of every day reading fiction. 

The advice seems strange, especially as it was given to 
a man and to an American at that, doubtless sharing 
the American man's prejudice against fiction reading. 
For, fiction-devouring nation as we are, we are inclined 
to look upon the time spent on stories as wasted. Besides 
most of such reading is done by women, who, we consider, 
have plenty of time to waste. Now our attitude in this 
matter is typicaf of our attitude toward nearly all the 
amusements of the mind. ,So great is our contempt for 
them that we never stop to think of acquiring them by 
cultivation. The idea of any man's deliberately follow- 
ing Mr. Dana's suggestion and systematically reading 
stories seems almost preposterous. 

But is the idea preposterous 1 ? If Mr. Dana found enjoy- 
ment and refreshment in novels, he was, of course, sensible 
to read them. But suppose a man has no interest in them. 
Ought he to try to cultivate such an interest? The 
answer would depend on the qualities of the man. If 
he had no other intellectual resources, novel-reading 
might be serviceable. There are people who need to be 
taken out of themselves for at least a few minutes each 
day and to have their imaginations quickened. Indeed, 
we all suffer from the limitations of our natures. "I can 

6 4 



THE READING OF FICTION 

sympathize with anything in the world that I could expe- 
rience myself," proudly exclaimed a clever, but censorious, 
literary critic one day. "But you ought to be able to 
sympathize with anything you couldn't experience," ex- 
claimed a friend. 

Many of us are shut up in the little prison of self. We 
are ill at ease and unhappy largely because we cannot 
escape. It is only the cultivation of the imagination that 
can give us freedom. Sympathy with the happiness of 
others, even though merely characters in books, will cheer 
us. Sympathy with characters as unfortunate as we are or 
more unfortunate will make us realize in periods of de- 
pression that "we are not all alone unhappy" and will put 
us in better conceit with ourselves. It is by getting away 
from ourselves that we are enabled to keep our proper 
relation with the rest of the world. 

But this view demands on the part of the fiction-makers 
exceptional skill. There is, besides, the pleasure that comes 
from mere amusement, which is so precious to mankind 
but never sufficiently appreciated. How often do we see 
readers, after a few hours of complete absorption in a 
story, throw it aside with a contemptuous remark or shrug 
of the shoulders. For the relief from care it has given 
them, for the delight, they seem to feel no gratitude. It 
is this state of mind that made Jane Austen, in one of her 
novels, break out in resentful indignation, and that makes 
authors of the present day furious when people declare of 
work achieved with travail of the soul, "Oh, yes, I read 
that little story. It was very pretty." If people knew of 
the efforts put forth by those who successfully entertain 
them, they would probably have a greater appreciation 
of the results. "Let us attend to the serious business of 
writing a comedy," says Triplet in Charles Reade's play 
of "Masks and Faces." From long experience Charles 

65 



THE READING OF FICTION 

Reade knew of the bitter price the artist had to pay for 
being an entertainer. 

Now Mr. Dana was an exception to most fiction readers; 
he recognized the joys of the imagination as among those 
conferring the greatest happiness human beings could 
have and he systematically cultivated them. He had too 
many intellectual interests, and he was too wholesome- 
minded a man to allow fiction reading to become a vice. 
He did not read as many American women are said to do, 
a novel a day. That, at the end of his life, he could still 
enjoy fiction, shows he never abused such reading. He 
read a multitude of other things. So he escaped from the 
intellectual and moral nausea that often comes from the 
persistent perusal of romances. In other words, he was 
temperate. For, in fiction reading as in all other pleasures, 
there is danger in over-indulgence. 

From the pulpits the old-fashioned preachers used to 
denounce novels and novel reading. According to their 
point of view they were right. Most novels of fifty years 
ago gave false views of life and, in the case of young 
people, they led to moral and intellectual flabbiness. 
Similar charges could be made today. For young people 
indiscriminate novel reading is dangerous. Herbert Spen- 
cer was opposed to free public libraries on the ground that 
they would inevitably deteriorate into purveyors of cheap 
fiction among school children. But Mr. Dana's advice 
was not for youth ; it was for those who had passed youth 
and it applied to all the experienced, the care-laden, to 
those who, without losing their mental balance, could let 
the imagination have play and could apply to what they 
read standards of judgment that came from their own 
living. It is amusing in this connection to hear that some 
of our nerve specialists are giving their patients courses 
in novel reading. As a people we must indeed be nerve- 

66 



THE READING OF FICTION 

sick when we have to have one of the most easily accessible 
forms of diversion prescribed for us. 

The ideal method of enjoying fiction, however, is to 
take it seriously. Then it gives a double pleasure, through 
appealing both to the imagination and to the intellect. 
The reader is not merely interested and entertained. He 
is an active worker, delighting in his task. In a sense he 
becomes a collaborator, verifying, denying, criticising, 
and finally emerging after refreshment that leaves his 
fancy and his wits in better condition than they were be- 
fore. If we have not learned to read fiction in this way, 
we do not really know the high art of getting from fiction 
its best rewards. 



6 7 



SEEING 

SEVERAL years ago, in midwinter, I crossed the 
Atlantic. Our company was small, about a dozen 
people. So we soon became acquainted. In spite 
of the season, the weather proved to be mild, and there 
was a pretty regular attendance at table. 

When we had been out a few days it seemed to me 
that our ship was a little world by itself. 

The passengers and the ship's officers and men repre- 
sented society. 

Our world was rolling about, not in space, but on the 
blue sea. 

Those of us who were passengers were sharing virtu- 
ally the same experiences. 

It interested me to see how differently we were affected. 

There was one man who seemed to enjoy everything. 
For every passenger on the boat he had a good word. 
And he spoke well of the courtesy of the officers, of the 
arrangement and care of the cabins, of the quality of 
the food. He walked among us like a radiant presence. 
Whenever he appeared people would brighten up. 

There was another man of about the same age, who 
complained all the time. He had his cabin changed and 
then insisted on being provided with another mattress. 
He criticized the management of the ship, the food, the 
passengers, the weather, in fact, nearly everything in 
sight. His whole day seemed to be spent in painful 
reactions. He was generally disliked and frequently 
snubbed. Wherever he went he made a depressing effect. 

Then there was a woman on board who did everything 
hard. In walking about she was continually bumping into 
something and getting hurt. Or she would go sprawling 

68 



SEEING 



on the deck through her inability to pilot herself. She 
would reach the table only by a series of frantic rushes. 
Her efforts would leave her in a state of great dishevel- 
ment and exhaustion. She kept, nevertheless, in a state 
of fairly good humor. But each day of her life on that 
ship consisted of a long series of battles in which she was 
more or less damaged. At night when she went to her 
cabin she was a wreck. 

These three passengers interested me particularly. They 
strikingly illustrated how differently people could be 
affected by the same things. 

Now why should they be affected so differently by the 
same things'? 

On the ship I used to hear the passengers speak of our 
little world as if it were something wholly outside them- 
selves. They would pass judgment on it, kind and severe, 
as if the qualities they noted lay wholly in the things. 

They did not seem to realize that those qualities were 
in any way influenced by themselves. 

And yet that week on board ship made me see very 
plainly there was really no such thing as qualities wholly 
outside oneself. The qualities were mainly in ourselves. 
Impressions which came apparently from without, actu- 
ally came, for the most part, from within. 

If such were not the truth how could these three people 
on board ship with me have been so differently affected 
by the same things'? 

Impression is, after all, largely an illusion. What is 
real lies in our minds and in our hearts. 

And this reality we can make beautiful or ugly accord- 
ingly to the attitude we take toward the rest of the world. 

Haven't you ever noticed how some things seen at a 
certain angle seem hideous, and how the same things seen 
at another angle seem beautiful ? 

6 9 



SEEING 

If we take toward the world an attitude of hostility 
we are sure to see the world at a wrong angle. It becomes 
ugly. It creates in us ugly, even painful feelings. 

If we are resentful, we are sure to suffer and to find 
more and more things to resent. 

But if we take toward the world a tolerant and gen- 
erous attitude, there results an amazing difference. The 
world becomes beautiful. People grow interesting and 
kind. Life takes on new zest. 

Why aren't most of us wise enough to act on this truth 
of every-day experience*? 

Why do we choose to take toward the world the atti- 
tude that creates unhappiness in ourselves instead of the 
attitude that creates happiness? 



70 



VALUES 

VALUES are curious things. They seem so simple. 
And yet the more one thinks about them the more 
complicated they grow. One discovers that they 
create a vast system, bewildering, like a maze. 
This maze is usually called economics. 

Of all the studies now pursued by men, there is not 
one more important than economics. Perhaps you will 
say that religion is more important, for the reason that it 
relates not only to life in this world, but to life in the next 
world as well. And yet, I believe it may be shown that 
economics relates both to the present and to the future life. 
For unless we learn to live wisely here how can we be 
ready to live wisely in the world beyond, where the con- 
ditions may be even more complicated 1 ? 

We have a way of assuming that if we are only good 
here the future life will be very simple for us, and pros- 
perous and happy. 

Is it not possible that in this assumption we are follow- 
ing the instinct that makes us think when we are disap- 
pointed in one place we should be very much more con- 
tented if we could move to some other place*? 

Whatever may be the truth, I am convinced that for 
most of us there can be no real happiness, no wholesome 
living, no moral growth, until we learn to understand 
values. 

You must strive to understand and I must strive to 
understand. We must think about values every day and 
about the relation of values to our living, to our think- 
ing, to the springs of character. 

It is by letting ourselves become so mixed in regard 

71 



VALUES 

to values that we have made such a mess of our way of 
living. 

If we understood values and strove resolutely and 
generously to sustain values in their right relations we 
should not see poverty blighting the earth, creating the 
slums in the great cities, developing suffering and disease 
and crime, and crippling millions of human beings in 
body and mind and soul. 

Where do values really begin 1 ? 

To find an answer we must go back to the creation of 
the world and to the experience of the first human beings 
on its surface. 

There are those who say that human beings were delib- 
erately placed here by God, first by the creation of 
Adam, then by the removal of a rib from Adam's body 
and the development of the rib into a woman, Eve, and 
then by the coming of Adam and Eve's offspring. 

There are others who say that human beings were 
evolved from creatures of the sea. 

There are multitudes of other theories, including the 
unattractive and yet popular belief that we evolved 
to our present state from a period when we lived as 
monkeys. 

Perhaps it was during the monkey stage, or some such 
stage corresponding to the monkey stage, that the crea- 
tures destined to become human beings began to have inti- 
mations regarding the existence of values. 

We know from observation that all animals have such 
intimations. Some of them have exceedingly keen ideas 
about values. 

And from these ideas about values in animals we can 
trace strong feelings in regard to rights. How often we 
look on while animals defend what they consider their 
possessions. Sometimes they fight as furiously as human 
beings. 

72 



VALUES 

How interesting it would be to know the precise 
moment and the precise conditions when a man said of 
a thing, "This thing is property and it is mine." 

It would be worth while knowing why he said such 
words, and on what considerations he based his claims. 

And of the greatest interest would be his reasons for 
possessing himself of that piece of property and declaring 
that his right to it shut out the rights of the rest of the 
world. 

Perhaps, on the other hand, at that early time, the rights 
of the rest of the world were not considered at all. The 
most powerful of all human instincts must have been the 
instinct that the race has maintained itself by, self-preser- 
vation. 

Perhaps it did not enter the consciousness of the first 
human beings that any human beings should be consid- 
ered except themselves. Perhaps each instinctively fought 
for himself. 

And perhaps the realization that the earth was <a 
common heritage, that it would be preposterous for any 
man or any group of men to claim it all, or to claim a 
large share of it, was an idea that could come only after 
many generations of training. 

Very soon after the creatures destined to become human 
developed the sense of values, this sense must have played 
a great part in their growth. It must have led to all kinds 
of complications. 

The moment we meet human beings in history we find 
them at full tilt, attacking one another, all on account 
of values. 

And history consists very largely of records of these 
disturbances, sometimes veiled as righteous wars or wars 
for a principle, but always with values somewhere exert- 
ing a mighty influence. 

73 



VALUES 



Nowadays we know that there is no such thing as a 
war simply and solely for an ideal principle. We know 
that if we only look far enough we shall find values play- 
ing a part, concern for material advantage. 

At present we are going through a readjustment of 
our ideas of values. We are on the verge of a revolution, 
none the less significant because it does not necessarily 
involve bloodshed. This revolution is going to upset long 
established views regarding values. It is going to show us 
that many of the evils from which we have suffered result 
from our misconception of values. 

Under the circumstances, surely it will pay us to think 
seriously about values, to study their meaning, to see how 
closely they are related to every minute in our lives, to 
every human relation that we sustain, to our security, our 
peace, our happiness, and to the welfare of the future 
generations. 

Maybe we shall find that there are values relating 
directly to all of us, values that, when properly adjusted, 
will change the whole aspect of living. 

We may even find that we own the earth and that prop- 
erty is of less value than humanity. 

Then we shall look about for a way of coming into our 
inheritance. 



74 



DANGEROUS WEAPONS 

THE LAW tries hard to protect us from danger. 
Here it is very ineffective, for we are never fully 
protected. There is no knowing what mischance 
may come, leading to tragedy. 

It is something, of course, that men may not carry con- 
cealed weapons, capable in an instant of destroying 
human life. The law puts a check on a few reckless and 
dangerous men, a feeble check, however. 

Is it really the law that gives society its best protection 
in this matter 1 ? 

Does not such protection come from ourselves? 

Would many of us choose to carry a dangerous weapon 
if the law permitted? 

I don't think so. 

We know that, for most of us, such weapons are 
unnecessary. We have really given them up of our own 
accord. 

There are dangerous weapons that the law pays no 
attention to. 

Some of these are not considered dangerous. There 
are some, indeed, that are generally regarded as good. 
They are not even called weapons at all. And yet, since 
men began to think, they have been the cause of incessant 
discord. 

They have caused quarrels and murder and wars. 

They have torn apart acquaintances and friends and 
relatives. 

They have broken up whole families. 

They have plunged the world in contention. 

Even now they are at work doing mischief wherever 
there is human life. 

75 



DANGEROUS WEAPONS 

I know a man who, a few years ago, became disturbed in 
his religious beliefs. He had been brought up very strictly 
by a religious mother. He had married a religious woman. 

Finally, he decided that he must change his religion. 
He must profess a religion that had been abhorrent to 
his mother, that was abhorrent to his wife. 

When he told his wife she was broken-hearted. He 
explained that he must do his duty as he saw it. But 
she was not convinced. She thought he ought to do his 
duty as she saw it. 

He loved his wife and he knew that his wife loved 
him. But he followed what he believed to be his duty. 
His wife tormented him. Where there had once been 
peace there was argument, that is, on her side. The man 
had sense enough not to argue against feeling so deep- 
seated. 

Soon he found that his domestic happiness was 
destroyed. 

They still live together, those two. 

But each day a deadly weapon beats on them, the 
weapon of discord. 

There is a new philosophy at work in the world. It 
is very noble and beautiful. It promises all human beings 
a share in the heritage of life, not merely a chance to 
work, to earn daily bread, but a chance to develop all 
the resources of the body and the mind and the soul. 

Vast numbers of people the world over are accepting it. 

One would think that faith in it would make people 
generous and inspiring. 

In many instances such is the result. Some of the most 
beautiful and lovable characters I know profess the new 
faith. 

But others have allowed the faith to turn them into 
infuriated zealots. They speak as, I imagine, the religious 
zealots of the middle ages used to speak, when they 

7 6 



DANGEROUS WEAPONS 

denounced those who disagreed with them and rejoiced 
over the burning of their fellow-creatures at the stake. 

They speak of brotherhood as if it were a corporation. 
They admit only those they regard as favored, the women 
and men that agree with them. 

Their other brothers they condemn and cast out. 

Whenever I hear people strongly expressing their opin- 
ions I am impressed by one quality behind them all, the 
belief in the truth of their opinions, the justice, the good. 

It is plain that they all think their opinions, if accepted, 
would work to the advantage of mankind. 

And it is this belief that seems to give them such vigor. 

As a rule, the stronger the belief the more vigorous is 
the expression, the more dangerous the weapon, the more 
deadly. 

The enthusiasts go as far as they can, as far as they 
dare. 

If the opinions hurled at us could kill the body most 
of us would have been dead long ago. 

They often do kill, however. They kill the good-will 
that ought to exist among human beings, the sympathy 
and the understanding. 

There is nothing in the world that can compare with 
strongly asserted opinions for destroying understanding 
and sympathy. 

Observe a group of enthusiasts holding different 
opinions. Five minutes after their talk begins they are 
out of sympathy and in a morass of misunderstanding. 

And as they founder they are furious with one another. 

Nevertheless each believes he is in the right, that his 
opinion, if accepted, will do the world good. 

What shall we do with those deadly weapons, these 
violent opinions'? 

Shall we make a law against them? 

77 



DANGEROUS WEAPONS 

Why add one more to our laws'? We have laws enough, 
too many. 

The best laws, as we have seen in the matter of carrying 
deadly weapons, come from the hearts of men. 

If we really felt that we needed to carry deadly weap- 
ons, all the laws in the world would not keep us from car- 
rying them. 

And from history we know that laws can't keep down 
opinions. They have been tried. Under them the 
opinions have gained in vigor and they have spread. 

The only way for us is to recognize the madness of using 
our opinions on one another to destroy harmony, which is 
the expression of understanding and sympathy. When 
once we recognize it we shall become sane. 

We shall see that opinions are of very little account, 
save as they do mischief. 

They have done more than anything else in the world 
to keep us back from our goal. 

For our goal is harmony. When once we have estab- 
lished harmony among us the spirit of understanding and 
sympathy will flow through the race. 

Then we shall become one. We shall be a healthy 
organization. 



78 



SMILING 

A PROFESSOR in one of the Eastern colleges once 
told me of a nervous breakdown that he had expe- 
" rienced some time before. 

"How did you get over it*?" I asked. 

He smiled rather sheepishly, as if half ashamed to 
tell. "I went to several of the nerve specialists," he said, 
"and I didn't succeed in getting any help. Then by 
chance I heard of a woman, not a physician, who had 
studied nervous diseases for years and had been very suc- 
cessful in treating them. Some friends persuaded me to 
go and see her. She pulled me through by teaching me 
how to take care of my thoughts and feelings." 

"How did she do it?" 

Again that shame-faced look appeared on the profess- 
or's face. "She began by making me learn to smile," he 
said. "You see, I had got down to such depths 
that I couldn't smile. It seemed as if I had lost all power 
over the muscles of my face. They had become set. They 
not only expressed the depression that I felt, but they 
actually added to it." 

"Well," I said, "after losing the power to smile, how 
did you acquire it again?" 

"I simply obeyed instructions. I went home and for 
half an hour I stood before the mirror and I practiced 
smiling. At first I had a hard time twisting my mouth 
into a smile. In spite of myself, the muscles would sag. 
Then I saw that the muscles were actually fighting 
against me. I kept on trying and at the end of half an 
hour I succeeded in making a pretty good imitation of a 
smile. That exercise I continued for several days till I 
had overcome the rigidity of those facial muscles and 
learned to control them. After a time I found I could 

79 



SMILING 

smile almost at will. When I began to be depressed I 
would smile. At the same time I would resist the 
depressing thoughts. The combination of the resisting 
and the smiling would save me from falling into depres- 
sion." 

That hard-headed and wholesome philosopher, William 
James, has expressed the same principle: "When you 
feel depressed, smile." 

It sounds easy. But in most cases it requires strong 
will, developed by practice. For there are comparatively 
few of us gifted with natures so sunny that we are con- 
tinually tempted to smile. 

I know a man who married a girl that used to be con- 
sidered very disagreeable. It was predicted by those who 
knew the girl well that he would regret his marriage. But 
they didn't appreciate the man. They didn't appreciate 
his capacity for smiling. 

I have myself witnessed little incidents where that 
capacity worked marvelously on that wife. I have seen 
her, in the presence of her husband, speak and act in a way 
that would make many husbands furious. But this hus- 
band would smile good-humoredly and the wife's ill feel- 
ing would evaporate. It would be as if the ill feeling 
had never been. 

Those two people have now been married for a good 
many years. Long ago I noticed that the wife had ceased 
to be disagreeable in the presence of her husband. From 
his habit of smiling her ill feeling had become discour- 
aged. It changed to good feeling. 

If« that husband's smile had not been sincere, if it had 
concealed or subtly conveyed ill feeling, it would, of 
course, have worked very differently. It would have irri- 
tated that wife almost beyond endurance. It would have 

80 



SMILING 

developed the ill feeling in her and made her, perhaps, 
unendurable. 

For smiling, to do good, either to those who smile or 
to those who look on, must convey kindly feeling. 

There are those whose smiles are almost terrifying. 
They can express many kinds of ill feeling, including dis- 
like, resentment, suspicion, cruelty. 

Then there are smiles that are puzzling, that some- 
times create uneasiness. These smiles are often called 
"enigmatical." The smile on the face of the Mona Lisa 
is of this kind. It makes some people uncomfortable. 

And we all know the truth of Shakespeare's saying 
that a man may smile and smile and be a villain still. 
And yet we all believe that this kind of smiling is sure to 
betray itself. In it there can't be anything wholesome, 
anything that would help to uplift the spirit. 

We human beings are very proud of being the only ani- 
mals that can smile. And yet we don't show a very 
proper appreciation of our gift. Though we may realize 
its magical qualities, we often fail at the critical moment 
to use them. For example, we may know that when we 
have to choose between smiling and frowning the con- 
sequences will greatly affect our own peace of mind. If we 
frown we shall be further involved in trouble. If we 
smile we may obviate the trouble. 

And yet, as a rule, under such circumstances, most of 
us choose to frown. 

We ought to imitate that nervous professor and learn 
smiling as an art. Habit will make it second nature. 



8l 



FEAR OF POVERTY 

ONE DAY I was talking with a very successful 
man. He was discussing his career, after the habit 
of so many successful men. In his career he took 
pardonable pride. But at the end he made an astonish- 
ing remark: "I suppose I am what people call a very 
rich man. As a boy, although I expected to conquer 
the world, I never thought I should be so rich as I am 
now. And yet there isn't one day in my life when I 
am free from the terror of poverty. There's not one 
day in my life when I'm free from the thought that, 
in my old age, I may land in the poorhouse." 

Another man, established as a dramatist, with a fortune 
invested in real estate that increases in value every year, 
once said to me: "Sometimes I wake up in the night 
and I think of what may happen to my wife and children 
in case I lose my money or become incapacitated and let 
it slip away, or in case after my death it is taken away 
from them. Perspiration breaks out all over my body 
and I lie there in agony." 

I looked at him in surprise. 

Was it possible, I thought, that he had become ill? 

Had his intellectual activities injured his mind 1 ? 

Or was he merely suffering from one of the penalties 
of success*? 

Now I know what he was suffering from, a disease that 
nearly every one in the world suffers from, nearly every 
one who thinks seriously about life. 

It is said that Mark Twain, perhaps the greatest humorist 
the world has ever known, was tormented by the fear of 
dying in poverty. With his friends he would discuss this 
obsession. Sometimes he would weep. 

82 



FEAR OF POVERTY 

His humor could not save him from this weakness. The 
best it could do was to make him forget it for a time. But 
to it his mind was always returning. 

Mark Twain died rich. But before he died rich he 
had died poor a million times. 

Years ago, in New York, I used to know a very clever 
young fellow who followed the rather precarious profes- 
sion of acting. He once told me that the sight of his 
brother actors out of work distressed him greatly. "I'm 
always putting myself in their place," he said. "I'm 
always dreading that the time will come when I shall 
walk the streets, broke." 

For several years I saw nothing of him. But I heard 
of him occasionally, playing small parts here and there. 
Finally he became well known through appearing in an 
important part in a successful play. 

While this success was going on I happened to' meet 
him. He was handsomely dressed and he seemed happy. 
We had a chat about old times. 

"Do you remember how I used to tell you about being 
afraid of going broke ?" he asked. When I replied that I 
did remember he began to laugh uproariously. "Well, 
I did go broke. I walked up Fifth Avenue one night 
with just nine cents in my pocket. Then I said to my- 
self, Tt has come at last!' And I leaned against a tree 
and I laughed and laughed." 

"Why did you laugh?" I said. 

"I laughed because I'd actually succeeded in laying 
that ghost. I found that being broke wasn't such a ter- 
rible thing after all." 

"What did you do?" I asked. 

"It was during the summer and I decided to try to get 
a job as a waiter in a summer resort. I went to an agency 
and offered my services. They gave me enough money 
to take me down to a little hotel on the Jersey coast. 

83 



FEAR OF POVERTY 

There I waited on table for two weeks. At the end of 
that time they found out that I was an actor and they 
appointed me the social entertainer of the place. I used 
to get acquainted with the guests and try to make them 
limber up and be social. I also managed the little 
parties. At the end of the season I'd saved up a little 
money, enough to keep me till I got an engagement to go 
on the road again." 

"Well," I said, "that experience must have been worth 
while." 

"Worth while!" he fairly shouted. "It has relieved 
me of one of the worst burdens I have ever known. It 
made a man of me. Now I don't care what happens. 
I've been down to rock bottom." 

He threw out his chest and walked gaily up the street. 

I suppose that many passers-by, seeing him in his fash- 
ionable clothes, regarded him as a social butterfly. 

But I knew better. 



84 



ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE 

IN NEW YORK a dozen years ago I met a young fel- 
low who was gradually making his way in the business 
world. He lived frugally on a very small salary; and 
yet he seemed to enjoy life. He had the happy faculty 
of taking things as they came. 

Suddenly, to his amazement, he inherited a fortune. A 
relative he was not on very good terms with died without 
leaving a will. He found himself with ten thousand 
dollars a year. 

At once he changed his mode of living. He moved 
into a handsome apartment. He joined several clubs. 
He fell into the way of taking most of his meals at fash- 
ionable restaurants. 

One day I received an invitation to dine with him. 
We met at Sherry's and we had what seemed to me a 
delicious dinner. 

But my friend was not pleased. On every dish that 
appeared he turned a critical eye. 

Nothing was exactly to his taste. And during the 
meal he made comments showing that, in regard to many 
other things in life, he had developed a similarly keen 
faculty for criticism. 

Then I saw that his wealth had taught him to make 
exactions. It had established standards for other people 
in their relation to him, standards that other people found 
it hard to live up to, or, perhaps, would refuse to live up 
to. 

His inheritance, instead of doing him good, had done 
him harm, had weakened his power to enjoy. 

It had led him to make a false adjustment to life. 

I couldn't help contrasting that man with another man 
of my acquaintance. He is prosperous, too. 

85 



ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE 

But he is also wise. 

He knows the folly of making exactions, of setting up 
difficult standards for others. 

Ever since I have known him he has been tolerant, 
considerate, patient. I suspect that he is one of those 
people whose characters are naturally placed right. 

But about that I can't be sure. 

And my reason for not being sure is that he is so 
methodical, so careful in his adjustment to life. His 
method and character suggest that his adjustment may 
be wholly the result of thought. On the other hand, his 
capacity for wise thinking may be one of the methods 
of nature which have helped to place his character right. 

Nothing apparently disturbs him. If the food, that, 
according to most people ought to be hot, comes on the 
table cold, he smiles and says: "I don't mind its being 
cold. I like it just as much as if it were hot." 

He probably misses many of the delights of the epicure. 
But he gains far more than he loses. 

The same spirit he turns on all the little vexations of 
life. He meets them with a smile. 

And the practice of meeting the little vexations has 
given him extraordinary power in dealing with the great. 

For most exacting people each day is a continual battle. 
Everything goes wrong with them. They complain; they 
fuss. They consider themselves injured, imposed upon. 

They never realize that the trials they meet are the 
trials that all human beings have to meet. They seem 
to be unaware that there is a quality in them which con- 
tributes to their uneasiness. 

They forget that life is wholly a matter of adjustment. 



86 



THE THINGS UNSEEN 

DURING a visit in Paris some time ago Thomas 
A. Edison was interviewed. He made a dispar- 
aging remark about the triumphal arch, generally 
known as the Arc de Triomphe. 

If you have been in Paris you must remember very 
clearly that arch. And if you have not been in Paris, 
you doubtless know the arch from photographs. 

There it stands at the head of one of the most magnifi- 
cent avenues in the world, the Champs Elysees. As you 
go up the avenue, hardly steep enough to be called a 
hill and yet steep enough to give the effect of a decided 
rise, you face the arch, nobly imagined, finely propor- 
tioned, a rare example of genius in conception and in 
design. 

Once, with an American lady, just arrived in Paris for 
the first time, I went up the avenue and under the arch. 
At sight of the arch she was thrilled. "Oh, how good not 
to be disappointed!" she said. "It is ever so much more 
beautiful than I thought it could possibly be." 

Nevertheless, so great a man as Edison, a genius, 
keenly alive to the work of other geniuses, was disap- 
pointed. And the reason was that while he was looking 
at that arch, he saw another arch, made of the bones of 
the soldiers Napoleon had sacrificed. 

When I heard of Edison's disappointment, I won- 
dered which of the two arches was the real arch, the arch 
of stone or the arch of bone. 

So often the things that seem real are the most unreal 
of all things. As a matter of fact, when we think that we 
see things clearly, we often see very imperfectly or we 
see not at all. 

87 



THE THINGS UNSEEN 

For, as the religious people say, the highest reality is 
the reality of the things unseen. 

Observe, for example, one of the richest men of the 
world, as he goes through his day. From the moment 
he wakes in the morning till he goes to sleep, he is sur- 
rounded with servility and honor. 

People think that they are honoring the man. They 
are doing nothing of the kind. They are honoring his 
possessions. It is to these they are servile. 

And how does the man feel'? 

Very naturally he feels that these people are servile 
to him and are paying him honor. He is his own Arc 
de Triomphe. He prides himself on being self-made. 
He also prides himself on his millions. He doesn't 
stop to consider that his millions have been made, not 
merely of bones, like the Napoleonic Arch, but of the 
living flesh and blood of those who, underpaid, ill-clad, 
contributed to his profits. 

If we could see this particular millionaire just as he 
is, if we could see how he has preyed on the hundreds 
of his fellow-creatures, what a sight he would be, what a 
monstrosity ! 

And what ghosts we should find hovering about him, 
the ghosts of those who suffered through him and his 
kind, the mentally and the morally slain. 

Walk about in a prosperous city. Observe how fine the 
buildings are, how clean the streets, how well dressed and 
eager the people as they dart here and there. 

Surely there is prosperity here, and happiness. 

Here is one of the most blessed cities in the world. 

We may pride ourselves on having good eyes. Yet 
our eyes may deceive us. They are telling us only part 
of the truth. And you know just as well as I do, part 
of the truth can be more deceitful and more misleading 
than an out-and-out lie. 

88 



THE THINGS UNSEEN 

For the prosperity and the happiness that you see may 
hide a vast amount of squalor and misery. 

Moreover, the prosperity and happiness are direct 
expressions of this squalor and misery. They have 
reached their highest beauty by making the squalid mis- 
ery more miserably squalid. 

Here is the expression of unfair competition, the strong 
preying on the weak, because the weak are helpless. 

It is very unpleasant to fall into the habit of seeing 
things, of really seeing, of distinguishing between what 
is partly true or not true at all and what is wholly true. 

For a time you may be amused by experimenting. Just 
try to think straight and to see clear. You'll discover how 
interesting the game is, how exciting. 

But beware ! If you keep at the game you will lose 
your peace of mind. You will be continually tormented. 
You will live in two worlds. And you will find yourself 
at odds with the world of affairs, with the particular world 
that we consider so important. 

Perhaps the best way, surely the most comfortable 
way, is to take the attitude of the friend I have referred 
to, who was not disappointed in the Arc de Triomphe. 
Perhaps it is well for our serenity that we can't all be 
Edisons, with the power to light up the world, even the 
world of the unseen. 

But if, even at the cost of our serenity, we wish to 
see the whole truth, we shall see all that the friend saw and 
all that Edison saw. 

We shall miss neither the seen nor the unseen. 

Then and then only shall we understand the meaning 
of things and acquire balance and judgment. 



8 9 



TRUTH 

THE more I think of truth the more dangerous it 
seems. 
And yet there are people who love it. Though 
they must see the mischief it has done in the world they 
consider their attitude creditable. Often they boast of it 
as they might of any great and noble passion. 
And how they use truth to smite one another ! 

One seldom hears nowadays of street-fights. In this 
particular humanity has progressed. 

But other fights go on indoors, in the mansions of the 
rich, in the hovels of the poor, in the simple homes of 
those neither rich nor poor, the blessed ones. 

They go on to a shocking extent where intelligence 
dwells. 

Often I have been present at such scenes. No missiles 
are thrown. There is no blood. But I know that feelings 
are lacerated. Dreadful wounds are made and some of the 
scars will never heal. In the hearts of those about us, as 
well as in our own hearts, there is bitterness that works 
like poison. 

All because of truth, this endless struggle for truth ! 

I sometimes wish that truth never existed. 

At other times I wish that it might be captured and 
destroyed or that it might be consigned to very kind treat- 
ment on an island in the Pacific. 

You see, I don't exactly hate it. But I believe the time 
has come when the mischief it does ought to be stopped. 

However, you can't kill it. 

And it might escape from the island as Napoleon 
escaped from Elba. 

Then the world would fall to quarreling over it again, 

90 



TRUTH 

maybe with more violence after the interval of peace and 
recuperation. 

You may say that if people really had the truth they 
would love it and submit to it reverently, adoringly, like a 
lover to his mistress. 

But already they think they have it. And their love, 
instead of making them submissive, instead of giving them 
beautiful humility, becomes a fury. 

It is because they think they have it that they go mad. 

When, in the middle ages, the religious zealots got to 
burning one another in the interest of truth, the marvel 
is that people didn't wake up. 

It would seem as if some of them must have said: 
"Truth has done mischief enough in the world. It is time 
that it be properly punished." 

But no such thing took place. 

So far as I have been able to discover not one word 
was said against truth. 

Error was a constant object of pursuit. Laws were 
made against it. Punishments were inflicted. 

But truth escaped. It towered above the world in its 
pride, its self-assertion, its tyranny, like a mighty citadel. 

I used occasionally to meet a woman who had charge of 
an institution for social betterment. 

She had a passion for truth. It was like a hideous form 
of sensuality. It used to commit her to dreadful excesses. 

One day she involved herself in a scene of violence. I 
happened to see her shortly afterward. She was like a 
warrior after a battle, exhausted, on the verge of collapse. 

I asked her why she had followed her course of action. 
With a sudden access of energy and in a loud voice she 
made that most pitiful of all replies: "Because I was in 
the right!" 

Her conviction that she was always in the right 

91 



TRUTH 

and her fierce championship of what she believed to be 
truth finally led to an investigation. 
It resulted in her removal. 

I know a man who has attained marvelous peace of mind. 
Nothing seems to trouble him. He wears his burdens 
lightly, like a loose, well-fitting suit. He is never in a 
hurry, never flustered. He has time even to listen to the 
troubles of others. 

Advice he never volunteers. But if he is asked for it, 
he gives it somewhat hesitatingly, always tentatively, 
as a thing of uncertain value. 

It is odd that many people like to talk their problems 
over with him. 

I once asked him if he could explain to me the secret 
of his power. 

He smiled. 

After an interval, he said: "I think it may be that 
I long ago gave up believing that two and two made 
four." 

"Don't you believe that two and two do make four 1 ?" 
I said. 

"Maybe," he whimsically replied. 

I have never been able to reconcile with Ralph Waldo 
Emerson a story they tell. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Emerson went 
among his neighbors in Concord, rejoicing. He felt that 
a noble impulse was animating the country and leading it 
to heroic expression. 

So it was. 

But it was doing other things, too — bringing horrors. 

This condition Emerson chose not to take into account. 

For Emerson the strife stood for truth. 

But like many other advocates of war, he favored strife 
sustained at a remote distance by others, his brothers in 

92 



TRUTH 

the flesh. Meanwhile he stayed in his beautiful Concord, 
where he could see only the pretty aspects of war, the 
eager young fellows marching in their handsome uni- 
forms, their sweethearts waving them on with handker- 
chiefs to death and to maiming and to the slaughter of 
their fellow-countrymen whose zeal was exactly like their 
own. 

When Emerson used to see Bronson Alcott, animated 
with the passion of truth and bursting with vociferous 
argument, coming up the front path, he would jump out 
of the back window. 

However Emerson might conceive the truth as strife 
for others, he conceived it for himself as peace, the right 
to think his own thoughts without warfare. 

There is a great deal in that idea about truth for 
oneself. 

If one could only keep truth for oneself and to oneself ! 

But those who get it for themselves long to impose it on 
others. And the stronger their love the greater is their 
longing to impose. 

If we think we have found truth for ourselves, above all 
things, let us not impose it on one another. 

Let us lock upon it all the doors of consciousness. 

For however inspiring it may be to us, however 
ennobling, when once we try to impose it on another it 
becomes a poison. 

It poisons ourselves. 

It poisons the others. 

See how it works. The very instant, in the most secret 
recesses of the mind, we desire to impose it on others, the 
poison is engendered. 

Surely you must have felt it working. It is almost as 
if truth said: "Be careful. If you spoil me I will no 
longer be a blessing. I will be a curse." 

93 



TRUTH 

Why do we so seldom heed this warning"? 

Why in the name of truth do we rush so madly into 
strife ? Why do we act as if we could not wait for misery 
to come to us, as if we must pursue it like eager chil- 
dren and clasp it to ourselves 1 ? 

Isn't it because we don't understand this strange thing, 
truth, because we don't know that unless we master 
it and destroy the self-indulgent regard for it in our hearts 
it will destroy us*? 

So, for this reason, I am in favor of an agitation 
against it, of a concerted movement against it. 

But the movement must be peaceful. It must express 
itself through an agreement, that each ol us shall drive 
out what we believe to be the truth in himself. 

But as I write I hear a cry of protest. 

It makes me realize how precious truth is to every one 
in the world, his own special truth. 

That special truth is in conflict with all the other truth 
it doesn't happen to coincide with. 

So long as it is kept in the heart, where it belongs, it is 
like a little garden. 

When we think of it as a little garden, how it changes 
its aspect ! 

Everything seems different out of its own environment, 
out of its sphere. 

Then let each keep his little garden, provided that he 
keep it in his heart. 

But, on penalty of death, let him not interfere with any 
other little garden. Let him not trample in that sacred 
place, where the love of truth flowers, creating beauty in 
the humblest, the lowliest. 

So let us tread softly. Let each of us love and cherish, 
not only his own garden, but the gardens of the others. 

Perhaps we shall find that in this way the garden of 
each of us will grow even more beautiful. 

94 



TRUTH 

The whole world will bloom with gardens. 

Is it not possible that here lies one of the secrets of 
life? 

But let us not be too sure. 

Let us plant this secret in the garden of the heart. 

If it is a true thing, if it really belongs in the heart, it 
will burst into bloom. 



95 



PERQUISITES 

AN ECCENTRIC man made a peculiar complaint 
to a group of friends in a house where I happened 
" to be calling. 

"Every morning," he said, "as I walk down-town, I 
have occasion to pass a building in process of construc- 
tion. In front of the building is a narrow board-walk. 
Only one person can pass on it. Often as I cross I meet 
workmen coming from the opposite direction. Involun- 
tarily, when they see me approaching, they step off and 
leave the board-walk to me. Now they do that, of 
course," he resentfully concluded, "simply and solely 
because I am better dressed than they are." 

We all listened with some interest and amusement, but 
in silence. 

Finally one of the group spoke up. "Don't you know 
that that little experience of yours is one of the perqui- 
sites of the prosperous 1 ?" 

"Perquisites of the prosperous !" 

I was struck with the phrase. I began to think about 
its meaning. 

The next day I had an illustration. 

I went into the office of a man who owned a large office 
building. Several people were waiting, among them a 
poorly dressed woman, who looked as if she might be a 
servant. I overheard a bit of talk between this woman 
and another woman sitting beside her. 

"I've been sitting here for over three hours," she said, 
"since nine o'clock. He sent for me to come yesterday 
and I waited all the afternoon. And then he went away 
without saying a word. They said he had to catch a train 
for the country." 

9 6 



PERQUISITES 

She sighed deeply and she rested her hands on her lap 
with the characteristic humility of the poor. 

From further scraps of her talk I gathered that she was 
a scrub-woman in search of work that had been promised 
her. 

Presently a portly, important-looking man entered. He 
asked authoritatively for the man the scrub-woman was 
waiting to see. In a moment he was ushered into the 
private office. 

The scrub-woman looked on with mild interest. She 
did not seem resentful. 

"Ah," I thought, "she recognizes the right of that fel- 
low to the perquisites of the prosperous." 

And as I sat there I racked my brain to find the exact 
opposite of the word "perquisites." 

I couldn't find a word close enough to satisfy me. 

But the thing the word would stand for if there were 
such a word — I recognized that plainly enough. 

I speculated about that scrub-woman's time. Those 
hours spent in waiting she might have used with profit, 
perhaps in work at home, perhaps in needed rest. 

How about the time taken from her? Would it be 
included among the perquisites of the prosperous? 

It surely would be included among the tributes that the 
prosperous exact from the poor. 

The deference paid to the prosperous is so generally 
recognized that many people struggle to keep up the ap- 
pearance of being prosperous. 

They will make heavy sacrifices in order that they may 
wear good clothes. This fact alone goes far to explain 
why, throughout the civilized world, the standard of dress 
is so high. Among those who strive for success there are 
comparatively few who dare be careless about dress. "It's 
a great thing," says an American philosopher, "to feel 

97 



PERQUISITES 

that you've reached the point of recognized prosperity 
where it doesn't make any difference what kind of clothes 
you wear." 

Observe the deference to dress that is paid everywhere 
around you, up to the mere suggestion of prosperity. 

Do you ever read the society columns of the great news- 
papers of the country? You will find there lists of women 
whose distinction it is that on this occasion or that they 
were "well-gowned." 

Fancy being able to attain in life this distinction ! 

And yet it is a distinction that wins some of the richest 
perquisites of the prosperous! 

I have heard women say, clever women, too, that there 
was nothing in the world that could give a woman such 
strength as the feeling that she was well-dressed. 

Men don't say exactly the same thing. But they act 
on the principle behind the saying. 

One of the greatest perquisites of the prosperous is their 
not having to pay their bills promptly. 

Here they enjoy a great advantage over the poor. 

If they are known to be very prosperous they may let 
the bills run on for years. 

It is notorious that very rich people are often the hard- 
est to collect from. 

By buying in large quantities the prosperous secure also 
fine rebates. 

These are among their richest perquisites. 

Now there are some kinds of rebate that are considered 
scandalous, even illegal, railroad rebates, for example. 

And yet in the daily lives of the prosperous, rebates 
are regarded as not only just, but highly creditable, things 
to be encouraged. 

The poor, in nearly all cases, have to pay cash. And, 

98 



PERQUISITES 

naturally, they have to buy in small quantities, which in 
itself is an extravagance. 

In fact, there is no extravagance so great as being poor. 

No wonder people struggle not to seem poor. They 
know that by seeming poor they will be subjected to the 
same exactions as the recognized poor. They will have to 
contribute to the tribute levied by the rich, to the per- 
quisites of the prosperous. They are by no means in- 
spired by vanity alone. They are wise enough to know 
that they can't afford to be included by the world among 
the poor. 

If the poor have credit and don't pay promptly, their 
credit is stopped. 

When it is a matter of rent, they are put on the street. 

I have seen their furniture on the sidewalks, in the 
rain. 

I recently had occasion to call on a clergyman. 

As I entered his house he was ushering out an old man, 
poor, feeble, evidently in distress. 

The clergyman spoke loudly, roughly. His words, 
however, showed that he was going to do the man a 
service. 

As he turned to greet me, his manner changed. He 
smiled. His voice softened. 

"You have to handle those fellows without gloves," 
he said, speaking to me as one speaks to an equal and 
drawing me into complicity. 

We had never met before. He had never seen me nor 
heard of me. Like the feeble old man, I had come to ask 
the clergyman to do me a service. 

But my clothes were as good as the clergyman's. They 
suggested prosperity. So the clergyman instinctively paid 
me one of the perquisites of the prosperous, one of the 
sweetest of all perquisites, courtesy. 

99 



PERQUISITES 

It Must be hard not to receive this perquisite. It must be 
one of the hardest things in life, one of the most embit- 
tering. 

Some of the prosperous like to say that the poor don't 
mind. The poor are so used to paying the tribute of 
respect and to failing to receive it. 

I wonder if the prosperous really believe that notion. 

Perhaps they only think they believe it. 

And perhaps they think they believe it because they 
have said it so often and because they have heard one 
another say it. 

But it isn't true. 

The poor repeatedly show that they feel discourtesy. 

As a matter of fact, they feel exactly as you do or as 
Ida 

They show that they feel it by responding within as 
you do and as I do, both to discourtesy and to courtesy. 

Only they may not show it in exactly the same way. 

Often they don't dare to resent discourtesy. They are 
afraid of the punishment that will fall upon them if they 
show it, and upon their wives and children. 

That is one awful thing about our way of living. 

The prosperous can so easily punish not only the poor 
that offend them, but those who are dependent on the 
poor. 

For in reality the poor have only one another to depend 
on. 

They can rely only on one another. 

I know a well-to-do man in New York who suffers con- 
siderably from thinking about the perquisites of the pros- 
perous. 

It is unquestionably a painful subject. If you think 
steadily about it for a few minutes it will make you very 
uncomfortable. 

Well, this man is an extremist, as people who resent our 

100 



PERQUISITES 

social conditions are so likely to be. It's a pity, too, for 
their extravagant language weakens their influence. 

This man is so prosperous that he refuses to wear good 
clothes. 

In fact, he often looks shabby. His friends, in present- 
ing him to their acquaintances, explain eagerly that he is 
rich. 

Their apologies cause him to be considered much richer 
than he actually is, greatly to his annoyance, a circum- 
stance not devoid of humor. 

One day he went to call on some people who lived in 
a fashionable New York apartment hotel. 

It was raining. He had no overcoat and his collar was 
turned up. He walked to the desk and asked that his 
name be sent to his friends. 

The clerk shook his head and frowned. "Go to the 
servants' entrance," he said. 

Now I should imagine this particular man would enjoy 
making his way up that entrance to his friends. 

But you never can be sure what those social enthusiasts 
will do in such an emergency. 

Besides at critical moments the sense of humor may 
become inhibited. Often it fails genuine humorists, just 
when they most need it, too. 

This man was furious. 

He blustered. 

Naturally they thought he had been drinking. 

They started to put him out. 

By that time he was so incensed that he might have 
done something foolish. 

But one of his friends happened along and rescued 
him. 

It's a very unpleasant thing for those of us who enjoy 
the perquisites of the prosperous to have them suddenly 
suspended. 

101 



PERQUISITES 

But it's a wholesome experience, too, if one only looks 
at it in the right way. 

It makes one realize how it must feel to have the per- 
quisites suspended all the time. 



102 



WASTE 

THERE is a passage in the Bible that troubles many 
practical people, where Mary Magdalene anoints 
the feet of Christ. They either forget the spirit that 
inspired the incident or they think it should have been 
expressed in a more practical way. The use of the oint- 
ment they regard as waste. 

Henry James has written a story called "The Altar of 
the Dead." It is like a great symphony. And yet the 
theme is simple enough. It tells of a man, entering the 
shadows of life, who expresses his love for his dead friends 
by dedicating candles to them and keeping the candles 
lighted on an altar. As the years pass the lights make 
a great blaze. 

I once gave the story to a lady, estimable in character 
and very practical. When she had read it she expressed 
disapproval. 

"What a waste of money!" she said. 

I recently heard of a great waste of effort, or rather 
what might be called waste. 

At the time of the great earthquake in San Francisco a 
San Franciscan was in New York. In his bachelor quarters 
he had left most of his. possessions, books, pictures and 
rugs of value as well as a trunk filled with clothes he had 
discarded and intended to give away. Just before leav- 
ing he had forgotten about the trunk. 

On the morning of the fire his friend Jim said to him- 
self: "Now there's Tom's things. I must see if I can't 
save them." 

Jim managed to break through the lines. He made his 
way to Tom's apartment. He looked about, bewildered, 
unable to decide which of the things to take. 

103 



WASTE 

He noticed the trunk. 

"Ah," he said, "that trunk probably holds the things 
Tom cares most about. He must have locked them up 
for safe-keeping." 

Jim found some rope. He wound it around the trunk. 
Then he dragged the trunk downstairs and along the 
street, letting it run on its hinges. 

He had decided to take it across the city, over the hills, 
to his house, three miles away. 

He proceeded slowly and laboriously. 

While Jim was climbing one of the steepest of the hills 
he met a friend. 

"What are you doing?" the friend asked. 

Jim explained. 

The friend said: "Well, I've got about a million 
things to do; but if that's Tom's trunk I guess I'll have 
to help you." 

So he took hold of one of the ropes. 

A half-hour later, when the two had made little prog- 
ress, they met a man they both knew, driving a furniture 
wagon. He drew up and asked them where they were 
going. 

When they told him they were taking Tom's trunk to 
a place of safety he said: "Well, I haven't any time to 
spare. I've got to take a lot of my own stuff out to the 
beach; but I can't leave Tom's trunk in the lurch. Put 
it in here and I'll drive it over." 

Jim wrote to Tom that he had saved the trunk. 

Tom wrote back his thanks. He didn't explain till he 
returned. Then Jim showed him the trunk, safe and 
sound, and told the story in detail. 

Tom laughed and laughed. 

Then he sat on a chair and looked steadily at the 
trunk. 

104 



WASTE 

"Well, well," he said, "well, well." 
With great rapidity he blinked his eyes. 

Those stories are all one story, aren't they? They 
express the same idea, through different illustrations. 
That idea we all know about. We call it by different 
names. Some people call it the greatest thing in the 
world. Others call it the only thing. Still others say 
that without it life would not be worth living. It is the 
thing that gives to life its meaning and its beauty. 
Can any expression of such a thing be called waste? 



105 



SIN 

WHEN I told a friend that I intended to write 
about the perquisites of sin he was shocked. 
"You surely aren't going to say anything that 
will make sin seem attractive, are you?" he said. 
"Isn't sin in itself attractive 1 ?" I asked. 
"Of course," he replied, with some uneasiness. "But 
still—" 

He did not finish. He was, you see, expressing a feel- 
ing, none the less strong because it was vague and hard 
to convey in words. 

We all know that sin is attractive, some kinds to some 
people, other kinds to other people. 

Its attractiveness explains why we are so afraid of 
it and why we so often take toward it what seems to me 
to be a false attitude. 

This attitude we hear expressed in many ways. One of 
the commonest is the betrayal among good people of a 
certain envy of sinners. 

It suggests that the good people think the sinners have 
acquired something they would themselves like to have, or 
something they are obliged to deny themselves by their 
refusal to sin. 

The sinners know better. 

They know that sin is not worth the return it brings. 

They know that in itself it is a penalty without refer- 
ence to the penalties it carries in its train. 

In this knowledge there is a wonderful perquisite. 

I know a man who, according to our ways of thinking, 
would, if his life were generally known, be regarded as a 
great sinner. In his way he is a modern Don Juan. He 

106 



SIN 

has often talked with me quite frankly about his expe- 
riences. Once I asked him, merely from curiosity, if he 
thought his way of living really paid. 

He looked at me sharply, almost angrily. "Of course, 
it doesn't," he said. 

In spite of his resentment I persisted in the inquiry. "Do 
you think it's better to go steady 1 ?" I asked. 

"Certainly!" he repeated, hardly able to restrain his 
impatience at the absurdity of my question. 

Another man of similar habits of life became seriously 
ill. His doctor told him that unless he completely 
changed his mode of living he would die within a few 
weeks. He sighed with relief. Then he said: "What a 
deliverance !" 

He meant that through his weakness of character his 
vices had fastened themselves on him and enslaved him. 

Only the threat of death could give him sufficient 
incentive to fight for his release. 

It is the sinners who know from experience that sin is 
slavery. 

And they know that in sin there is no peace and that in 
the gratification of sin there is disappointment and dis- 
illusion. 

All these things the good people know from hearsay. 

Many of these people don't really believe the reports. 
They are among the most abject of the earth. They look 
out on the sins of the world and they long to sin and they 
are prevented from sinning, not because they love good- 
ness, but because they are afraid. 

They are not afraid of evil. Far from it. In their 
hearts they love evil. They are afraid of certain conse- 
quences of evil, of punishment not directly related to the 
nature of evil, but forced into association with evil by 
public opinion. 

107 



SIN 

One of the perquisites of sin is that it teaches sinners 
the nature of evil. And by such teaching it reveals the 
beauty of goodness. 

Often in the hearts of sinners there is a deep love of 
goodness, fostered by the experience of sin. It may persist 
while the sinner goes on sinning. 

Through sinning it may grow stronger and achieve a 
wonderful humility. 

Haven't you noticed how genuinely attractive sinners 
often are? 

When they are frank in their sinning, free from pre- 
tense, they are nearly always likable. 

It is when they are hypocritical or brazen that they 
repel. To such fall none of the perquisites of sin. 

It is notorious that many people considered good by 
others and by themselves are the severest judges of their 
fellow-creatures, the most ready to condemn. 

There are good women who in their moral judgments 
achieve an almost inhuman cruelty. 

On the other hand, there are sinners who, through sin- 
ning, have reached a Christ-like patience with others, 
expressing itself in the kind of sympathy that can come 
only from perfect understanding, from the power to feel 
with other sinners. 

For they know that the state of sinning is not joyous 
but sad, that it is not to be condemned but to be pitied. 

And this knowledge flowers into qualities that in people 
about them cause amazement and mystification. 

These qualities are rare perquisites. 

Sometimes one sin can make a character. 

Many women, by sinning, have realized the meaning of 
goodness and dedicated themselves to goodness for the rest 
of their lives. 

By losing virtue they have found virtue. 

Sometimes they are women condemned by the world. 

108 



SIN 

Thereafter they go through life like wonderful pres- 
ences, shedding about them sympathy and peace. 

In "Hester Prynne" Hawthorne has given a supreme 
example of a woman of this kind. 

For when a good woman, one set apart from evil by the 
conditions of her life and by her nature, suddenly finds 
herself associated with evil, she becomes allied with all the 
sins of the world. These forces may either destroy her 
or make her over again into a creature fine, noble, through 
the fires of shame and pity. 

There are men, too, who never learn the meaning of 
life till they have suffered through sin. Sometimes reve- 
lation comes through one sin, sometimes through a long 
career of sinning. 

"Most sins," says a wise philanthropist who has asso- 
ciated with great sinners, "are only perverted virtues." 

Perhaps, after all, the lessons of sin are really the les- 
sons of virtue. 

For what is learned through sinning all sinners pay a 
heavy price. 

And most of what is learned carries a weight of sadness. 
From it some sinners never escape. Even in the wisdom 
of sinners there is the dreadful knowledge that in a better 
way, by steadfastly following the stern principles of 
duty, they might have acquired all they have gained. 

But how easily we speak of sin. One would think we 
knew what sin was and that it existed apart from people 
and that people rushed eagerly into sin. 

And yet we know that sin exists, not outside of man, 
but within his consciousness, in the secret recesses of the 
heart. 

Because we do evil it does not necessarily follow that 
we sin. 

But there is no doubt about our sinning when we think 
evil and love evil. 

109 



SIN 

And in such thinking and loving there are few perqui- 
sites. There is chiefly destruction, loss. 

Perhaps to the divine understanding, those we consider 
the greatest sinners are among the least sinners or are no 
sinners at all. 

And perhaps those who seem pillars of righteousness 
commit small acts every day of their lives that work for 
evil, acts of unkindness, maybe in the very name of virtue. 

Surely for such there are no perquisites of sin. 

For without the realization of sin there can be no per- 
quisites. 

There is a great difference among people in the ca- 
pacity to feel the effects of sin. Where one may quickly 
recover and become apparently sound again, another, 
after committing perhaps the same sin, will be corrupted 
or made morbid for the rest of his life. The best we can 
acquire from sinning is the power to understand the mean- 
ing of the moral law and the importance of living in 
harmony with its working. From remorse there may be 
little or no gain. The healthy consciousness quickly 
reacts. For this reason we ought to be slow to condemn 
those who go on sinning lightly and inconsequently. 
Theirs may be only superficial blundering. On the other 
hand, of course, their indifference may be the result of 
hardness. Even here they deserve sympathy. Through 
repeated sinning they may have lost the meaning of life. 

Some of the saddest consequences of sin are experi- 
enced by those children who, before they acquire the 
capacity to understand and to resist, through unhappy 
circumstance, fall victims. Their sins may establish 
themselves as life-long vices. Many of them are in- 
evitably started on the road to criminality. With the 
conviction that we are serving the ends of justice we 

no 



SIN 

give them terrible punishment. And yet they may be 
crippled by the very social organization that we so 
righteously uphold. Their presence among us ought 
to be one of the most potent means of teaching us to be 
slow to judge and to punish. 

There are other ways, far more beneficent and far less 
dangerous. They give the sinners a chance to repair, 
so far as may be possible, the ravages of sin and to lead 
back consciousness into the ways of health. 

No matter how we may safeguard ourselves, there is 
not one of us who is free from those sudden rushes of 
temptation which at times seem almost uncontrollable 
as well as inexplicable. Perhaps they are revolts of 
nature, scorning restraint and violently self-asserting. 
Nearly always they are related to the egotism that, in 
its subordination to social law, often feels itself limited 
and irritated. They ought to make us more patient with 
one another. Each day they give us lessons in humility. 
It is perhaps due to our egotism that so many of these 
lessons are lost. We cannot reflect too often on the 
speech that moved Wesley to say as a prisoner passed 
him bearing the insignia of his disgrace : "There, but for 
the grace of God, goes John Wesley." 

Such an attitude is in itself a beautiful perquisite. 

So long have we been told we are all sinners that the 
phrase has lost most of its meaning. Perhaps we can 
give it reality by reflecting that we are all potential crim- 
inals. The evil qualities that betray themselves to our 
consciousness might, under favorable circumstances, 
easily have led us into crime. When we look back on 
our lives we can see that we have passed through situ- 
ations where, but for a chance, we might have committed 
offenses destructive of our peace of mind for the rest of 
our days. Who can say that in a moment of wrath he 

ill 



SIN 

has, at heart, never committed murder? As a matter of 
fact, nearly everyone of us is directly related to all the 
murderers of the world. 

We all recognize the vast difference between con- 
sciousness of sin and consciousness of being found 
out. And yet the two are often confused. They 
are really not related at all. There can surely be 
no moral value in regard for mere reputation. 
It may be a low form of selfishness. Consequently, there 
is no direct gain to sinners as a result of exposure and of 
punishment. Though they may say they have learned 
their lesson, they have really learned to dread, not sin, 
but some of its consequences. What is most important 
they have not learned at all. There are certain kinds 
of remorse and reform that are more ignoble than sinning, 
expressing fear and cunning. Indeed, this attitude may 
be noted among people highly esteemed. Though they 
may lead what we call good lives, there is really nothing 
estimable in their springs of action. They have no real 
character. With them conduct is simply a means of se- 
curing advantage. 

Inability to turn away from the memory of sin, to 
forget, instead of being a merit, is likely to be a morbid 
condition of consciousness. Like the body, the soul 
ought to be able to throw off any unwholesomeness. Just 
now many cults are reaching out to those afflicted with 
this kind of sickness. What is it that they undertake to 
do*? Is it not to restore the self-respect that to every 
human being is necessary for the resolute meeting of life? 
Its loss may react harmfully on both soul and body. 
Through it many a woman is sent to death or to degra- 
dation. Feeling herself abandoned to sin, she really 
becomes abandoned. She either goes into the depths 
or she offers herself to an ideal of punishment. In such 

112 



SIN 

cases we find a curious bond between self-respect and 
reputation. Perhaps, after all, this kind of morbidness 
is mental weakness. The reproach of the world becomes 
self-reproach. Among men we can trace a similar 
process. Whatever may be the cause of the loss in self- 
respect, it works havoc. Of such men we sometimes say : 
"He has lost his grip." His moral muscles have become 
flabby. He is in the state where he may easily become 
the prey to any one of many disasters. Though they 
seem to come from without they really come from his own 
consciousness, denying all perquisites. 

Our worst sins, at any rate, those that would be con- 
sidered worst by the world, may not give us the most 
trouble. Instead, they may find the easiest justification. 
We know that behind them there have been powerful 
forces. Moreover, they may have been confused with 
much that was good. Most of us, when we are seriously 
troubled by conscience, think of the minor offenses, the 
small unkindnesses, the petty meanesses. A deed of 
momentary cruelty, a flash of anger, may pursue us at 
intervals for the rest of our lives. For months or for 
years it may disappear. Then suddenly, at night or in 
the midst of an exciting day, it may suddenly rise into 
consciousness. Then we know that it has been hiding 
down there in the sub-conscious, an accusing and a men- 
acing presence. Perhaps it comes in the shape of a look 
of pain that we have caused to appear in the face of the 
friend. Though instantly the friend forgave and forgot, 
indelibly the look was photographed. Perhaps it does 
us good, making us a little more controlled, a little more 
considerate and humble. 

We may not regard our worst sins as sins at all. We 
may even consider them virtues. Observe, for example, 
the working of the sins against sympathy, in effect, 

113 



SIN 

of all our sins, the most deadly. They usually ex- 
press themselves through the confidence that goes with 
righteousness. They inspire bold operators, striking here 
and striking there in their blindness, mistaking their havoc 
for moral achievement, doing mischief often irreparable. 
The careers of such offenders suggest that, without sym- 
pathy, perhaps no good can be done by man, however 
sincere the motive may be, however lofty. 

Those most to be pitied are the sinners who know that the 
effects of their wrong-doing are working out in the lives 
of others. Some of them, it is true, develop a remarkable 
callousness. Self-justification enables them to leap over 
hurdles apparently insurmountable. But among them, 
there are many who, at intervals, hear the accusing voice 
of conscience. Sometimes the desire to keep it silent leads 
them to acts of expiation. The wrong that is out of their 
reach they try to atone for by some gratuitous service. 
And if pride keeps them from righting the wrong within 
their reach they may make some covert restitution. 
Nearly everyone of us has been influenced in this way. 
Clergymen and public officials and psychologists can tell 
strange stories of people who, after being pursued by the 
memory of transgressions involving money or property, 
have tried to make atonement by secret refunding. 

Those that pride themselves on maintaining a high 
standard of conduct sometimes forget that, though they 
may not themselves be what the world calls sinners, they 
may nevertheless be the cause of sin in others. Great 
evil has resulted from the attitude and the precepts of 
moral superiority. Those who make virtue unattractive 
harm the whole cause of virtue. Much of the sinning 
in the world may be laid at the door of the righteous. 
It is conceivable that in certain kinds of righteousness 
there is no real good. Though it may never be betrayed 

114 



SIN 

into sinful acts, its pride is in itself a continual sinning 
and incentive to sin. 

There are people who carry some fearful temptation 
hidden in their natures. How it became lodged there is 
not always clear. Sometimes it seems as if it must have 
been part of them even before birth. More often it is 
possible to trace its beginnings. In some instances the 
victims themselves can point to the very moment when 
they gave it lodgment. On all such sufferers the world 
is inclined to turn a censorious face, perhaps to shrink 
away. In many instances it punishes with fearful sever- 
ity. It seldom thinks of the anguish of the victims, the 
efforts to resist and to conquer the enemy, the repeated 
failures, the despairing outlook. Now and then one of 
them is successful. Perhaps for years he has been a 
drunkard or a drug fiend. He has gone through trials 
that most of us cannot even imagine. Now he has tested 
himself. The measure of his weakness becomes, in a 
sense, the proof of his strength. He is a far greater being 
than he could have been without that long trial. He 
has been forced to give his moral muscles tremendous 
exercise. They are like mighty sinews. To you and to 
me, as he passes, he may seem commonplace, uninterest- 
ing. But, to a finer eye, he is a giant. 

Such a triumph, however, does not ask for our applause. 
Though we may have much to gain from its example 
we have little to give. From us it needs no praise. In 
itself it is sufficient. The moral failures, more numerous 
by far, cry out for understanding and help. Often they 
are bewildered by themselves. Vaguely they wonder 
why this burden has been put on a nature so unfit to 
bear it, so incapable of persistent struggle. In failure 
there may be even finer qualities than in success. At any 
rate, we know that it is not for us to pass judgment. 

115 



SIN 

Science has told us that in the vast number of these cases, 
if there is sin at all, it is the sin of other generations. 

About us there are people, apparently free, who live in 
prison, undergoing sentence for the violation of nature's 
laws, made by those they have never seen. The blood 
running in their veins carries with it memories that are in 
themselves incitements to sin. While they live who can 
say there are no slaves in the world? 

We sometimes speak of death as an escape or a release. 
But how much do we know? Constantly souls leave 
behind the children of the passions they have indulged, 
of the evil thoughts they have cherished. Now we can 
see the responsibility that each of us bears, not only to a 
Creator, but to ourselves and to those coming after. We 
are helping to mar or to make the future generations. We 
are custodians of their health and happiness. This 
thought is not nearly so despairing as it seems. Perhaps 
it is in our power to undo many generations of wrong, 
to turn weakness into strength, to establish a new line, 
an aristocracy of blood that shall be a high expression of 
character, to create the tendencies that shall be the greatest 
of all human perquisites, far transcending any perquisite 
that can come from sin. 



116 



THE DESIRE TO DISAGREE 

RECENTLY I spent a day with some friends that 
treat me as a member of the family. Before me 
" they have few or none of the concealments that so 
many of us practice with those outside the family circle. 

It was a long time since I had mingled so freely with 
a large family group. I was rather astonished at my 
impressions. 

What struck me first of all was the ill-will among 
the members of that particular group. And yet they 
were exceptionally polite with one another. I cannot 
recall one unkind thing that was said in my presence. 
But, during the whole day, beneath the conversation 
there ran an undertone that was obviously not sympathy. 
It betrayed itself chiefly in disagreement of opinion, 
expressed with subtle but easily discerned ill feeling. 

As the day passed and as I grew more and more uncom- 
fortable, I became aware of something else in the relation 
of the members of that family. 

Even where there was little chance for disagreement, 
there would still be some expression of disagreement, more 
or less vague and yet unmistakable. 

And then I perceived that those people were all suf- 
fering from one of the most distressing forms of habit, 
antagonism, which reveals itself so often in the desire to 
disagree. 

Since that time I have seen many expressions of this 
desire, not only in families, but among employers and 
employed, among friends, even among mere acquaint- 
ances. Where it is openly expressed it may lead to vio- 
lent language and to quarreling, perhaps to blows. Where 
it is insidiously betted it creates bitterness for the time 

117 



THE DESIRE TO DISAGREE 

hidden, or revealed only in a continued expression of the 
desire to disagree. 

All through our life runs this undercurrent of bitter- 
ness. It poisons the minds of individuals. It poisons 
the public consciousness. Directly and indirectly it leads 
to a vast number of evils. 

Perhaps the worst of all the evils is that it makes 
human beings persistently go through life in a state of 
hostility. 

The other day I went to call on a man who for several 
years had employed a remarkably clever secretary, a young 
college graduate. To my surprise, I noticed that, in place 
of the young fellow, there was a middle-aged woman. I 
asked the man how he happened to lose so valuable an 
assistant. 

"The reason was simply and solely," he replied, "that 
he introduced into this office something I particularly 
dislike, ill-will. He got into the habit of challenging 
things that I said and did. And when I did not take his 
advice, or when I insisted on having things done just as 
I wanted them done, he would become disagreeable. I 
saw that it would be a great nuisance to have any one of 
his disposition about. So, in spite of his being one of the 
most helpful workers I have ever had, I let him go." 

There are those who seem to be born with the instinct 
to disagree. I have in mind at this moment one such 
person. I have heard him express emphatically a certain 
opinion and then, perhaps a day or two later, I have 
heard him denounce the same opinion expressed in his 
presence by some one else. 

Sometimes, of course, this kind of thing is done by 
those who love argument for the sake of the intellectual 
exercise. But in this instance it was due simply and 
solely to the love of disagreeing. 

118 



THE DESIRE TO DISAGREE 

How can we trace this love 1 ? 

It surely must have a powerful cause. It must come 
from deep-seated impulse. 

Obviously it is related to the passion for self-expres- 
sion. 

In the habitual denying of the opinions of others 
there is the persistent assertion of our own opinions, that 
is, of ourselves. 

So the habit of disagreeing is unquestionably related 
to the quality that breaks out into so many evil conse- 
quences, egotism. 

If we did not spend so much time in trying to disagree, 
if we did not torment ourselves with the ill feeling that 
accompanies the will to disagree, we should learn very 
much more than we learn now, and we should be surprised 
at the strange improvement in the people and in the world 
about us. 

We should find that, through persistent self-assertion, 
instead of gaining, we lost. 

We should also discover that through resisting the 
desire to disagree, through giving people as good a chance 
to express themselves as we long to give ourselves, we 
should exert a far greater influence than we do now, and 
we should be heard oftener and with more profit. 



119 



REFORMERS 

ONE SUNDAY night I took supper with a 
reformer. He was very successful in business 
and he lived in a beautiful house. Since mov- 
ing there he had become a believer in the simple life. He 
used to complain a good deal about the house and about 
his way of living. Among his friends it was said that 
he wished to go to a less fashionable quarter and to live 
plainly, letting his wife do her own work. It was also 
whispered that his wife did not sympathize with his ideas 
and loved society with all that society implied. 

People were sorry for the man. 

At the supper table he explained with great satisfaction 
that the servants had gone out and his wife had prepared 
the meal with her own hands. 

It seemed to me that he made a little too much of the 
incident. 

Perhaps, however, I was mistaken. 

Perhaps I was wrong, too, in thinking that the wife 
was not wholly pleased. Somehow I got the impression 
that he was, unconsciously, rubbing it in. 

During the meal our host passed around a plate of 
prunes. When he offered them to his wife she said pleas- 
antly: "No, thank you, dear.*' 

"But they're very wholesome," he insisted. "You'd 
better have some." 

"I don't care for prunes, thank you." 

"They're good for you. You ought to eat them." 

With a patient smile the wife took a prune. 

That smile opened up a vista. 

The reformer put down the plate with an air of 
content. 

He had done good to his wife. 

120 



REFORMERS 

There was a moment's awkwardness. Then the talk 
flowed on. 

I often think of that incident when I read about the 
domestic troubles of reformers. 

There is nothing in the world more dangerous than the 
habit of doing people good. 

On another occasion I met a group of reformers. The 
atmosphere seemed rarefied. The talk was of high things. 
We fairly bathed in spirituality. 

Soon, however, the situation changed. 

The reformers became involved in an argument. 

They grew vehement, angry. Each tried to keep the 
others from talking that he might talk himself. 

And I saw that they were all animated with fury, 
because they believed they were fighting for the right. 

The fact was, of course, that each was fighting for 
his opinion, asserting himself, beating down the others so 
that his view might prevail. 

It was a painful scene, yet comic. 

No opinions were changed. There was great damage 
to feelings. 

One remark struck me as particularly illuminating. 
But it wasn't merely a remark. It was a roar, directed by 
one reformer at another reformer. "I guess you haven't 
got the truth yet !" 

One evening I chanced to be walking along the street 
with a reformer, a man in active political life. He had 
grown old in usefulness, but not in patience. He met a 
young man, also in public life, who had differed with him 
on a matter of public riolicy. 

He assailed the young man. As he talked, he took a 
higher and higher moral tone. Before he finished he was 
nearly beside himself. 

The young man showed respect to gray hairs. He bore 

121 



REFORMERS 

the assault with amazing self-restraint, with touching 
courtesy. 

At the close of the talk, the aged reformer and I walked 
on. He expressed delight with what he had done. 

His whole being radiated a peace passing understand- 
ing. 

He evidently thought that I had profited by a display 
of virtue so edifying. 

Which of the two was right? I didn't know. My 
feelings wouldn't let me think. 

Charles Wagner, author of "The Simple Life," 
expressed what seemed to me a sound thought when he 
said that the millionaire riding in his carriage might be 
leading the simple life as truly and sincerely as the laborer 
walking along the street. 

Rudyard Kipling once said that there were nine and 
ninety ways of writing of tribal lays and every blessed 
one of them was right. 

We can't go far in morality before realizing that right 
is a relative thing and that those who disagree with us 
may be striving for it as earnestly as we are ourselves. 

It is the spirit that counts. 

When I was a boy we used to keep at home, in the kitchen 
closet, a big wooden box filled with string, all kinds of 
string, all colors. Whenever I wanted string I would go 
to that box. Often I had a good deal of trouble drawing 
out a piece from the mesh. 

In thinking of human character, I am sometimes 
reminded of the string in that box. 

It is a mesh. 

In this regard the character of even a reformer is like 
every other human character. 

This commonplace observation may explain some mys- 
teries, even why reformers are hard to live with. 

122 



REFORMERS 

People used to be thought of as good people and bad 
people. Now we know better. There are no absolutely- 
good people. 

To some of us this thought is depressing. If there 
were absolutely good people it would be so pleasant to 
include ourselves among them. 

On the other hand, the thought ought to give us all a 
good deal of comfort, for, just as there are no absolutely 
good people, there are no absolutely bad people. 

Follow the notion to its logical conclusion and it will 
lead you into strange paths. 

Ida Tarbell says: "Education should teach people to 
think things out to their logical conclusions and to adapt 
their moral conduct to those conclusions." Their moral 
conduct means, of course, their every-day conduct, their 
minute-to-minute life. It is the minute-to-minute life 
that makes the hardest test. If the reformers would only 
follow the suggestion in this definition they ought to 
become more patient with the world, more patient even 
with one another. 



123 



ANGER 

AS A BOY I used to observe certain grown-ups of my 
acquaintance with awe. They seemed to me to be 
"" wonderful people. Always they were kind and 
pleasant. And they were never patronizing, like some of 
the other grown-ups that I did not care for at all. 

I remember the shock I received when I saw one of 
those heroes of mine show anger. It was as if he had 
suddenly become a demon. 

Then I had my first realization of the extraordinary 
change that anger could create in a human being. 

I suppose that all children, consciously or unconsciously, 
go through the same experience. And yet, horrible as 
anger appears in their eyes, it doesn't keep them from 
showing anger themselves. On the contrary, it actually 
encourages them to express anger, according to nature's 
habit of teaching by imitation. 

We occasionally hear of "righteous anger." We mean 
anger that is justified by circumstances. 

But, in a sense, all anger is righteous. That is, all 
anger justifies itself in the mind of the person who feels 
the anger. 

In another sense, there is no such thing as righteous 
anger. 

For no anger can really justify itself. 

Anger is a form of madness. The words we apply to 
it show that human beings have long recognized its char- 
acter. We still speak of angry people as mad. We some- 
times say that they are "furious" or "in a fury." 

124 



ANGER 

Some people are led by anger into the most violent 
excesses. Anger is one of the commonest causes of mur- 
der and it often leads to the infliction of blows, mental 
or physical, that might easily occasion murder. Oftener 
still it commits murder without loss of life, by doing to 
minds and souls mischief irreparable. 

In one respect anger is like drunkenness. It tends to 
destroy prudence. 

Where the intoxication of anger is complete, prudence 
disappears altogether. Then the way is clear for infamy. 

There are some people who, when they have once 
yielded to anger, lose all control. They snatch any 
weapon within reach. If they cannot strike with things 
they will strike with words, often far more terrible in 
their effect. 

They will make statements that can never be atoned 
for, that will sting and burn to the end of life. 

Sometimes anger is referred to as "temper." And among 
many people to have a temper is considered creditable. It 
is in some way associated with power. 

Here is a common confusion of thought. Good quali- 
ties associated with a bad quality are likely to confer on 
the bad quality a false character. 

On the other hand; bad qualities associated with a good 
quality may completely destroy respect for the good 
quality. 

The pride that people take in having a temper often 
leads them to shameful indulgence in anger. And re- 
peated indulgence tends to destroy the capacity for self- 
control. 

As a matter of fact, nearly every one has a capacity for 
temper, that is, for anger. 

It is associated with all our deepest qualities, with 
egotism, the instinct for self-preservation and for self- 
assertion. 

125 



ANGER 

Anger, after all, is very largely an arrogant and violent 
assertion of oneself. 

It is a gross expression of tyranny. 

People who habitually yield to anger are likely to acquire 
an erroneous notion of their own power. 

For there is no doubt that in anger there is a good deal 
of power. It often gets what it wants, like every form 
of self-assertion and tyranny. And what it loses may not 
be apparent on the surface. Nevertheless what it loses 
may be so vast as to be incalculable. 

For, great as the power of anger may be in some cases, 
it is pitifully small compared with the power of its 
opposite quality, self-control. And just as self-control 
may often seem to be weakness, anger may seem to be 
strength. 

The truth is, of course, that real strength lies not in 
anger, but in the control of anger. 

In the last chapter of Tolstoy's novel, "The Kreutzer 
Sonata," there is a wonderful description made by a mur- 
derer of his sensations while killing his wife in anger. 
Here Tolstoy gives an exhibition of his genius, of his 
power to see clearly into the deepest springs of action. 

The murderer explains that, though his anger grew 
more and more violent as he approached closer and 
closer to the point where he knew he should commit 
murder, he never lost the sense that by an effort of will 
he could control himself. 

It was as if he were two persons, one passionately 
yielding to his anger, the other calmly looking on, judging 
and warning. 

In moments of anger many of us have realized this 
double personality. We have known that any indulgence 
of our anger was a weakness. And we have realized none 
the less clearly because we yielded till we were in a fury. 

126 



ANGER 

Even in our fury we have stood apart and watched 
ourselves and warned. 

Perhaps this double consciousness explains why some 
strong natures, in the midst of wrath, suddenly become 
still as death. 

There are comparatively few people who have not 
something of this double consciousness. It is the saving 
remnant in human nature, the voice of wisdom, however 
smothered, warning us against danger. 



127 



A PIANT 

THE PLANT was given us by a kindly old gardener, 
straight out of his garden. It was a tall, erect 
geranium, with many rose-pink blossoms, nearly 
all double. I can see it now as it gracefully swayed in the 
breeze. It had a kind of radiance. When we reached 
home we didn't know just where to put it; but we found a 
nook in the corner of the dining-room, just beyond one of 
the windows. 

A few days later a friend who loves flowers came and 
noticed that geranium. He was delighted with the color 
of the blossoms. He asked for a slip for his garden and 
he carried one away. 

After several weeks one of us noticed that the geranium 
was drooping and that the flowers were changing from 
pink to white. "See what a difference it makes," he said, 
"when a plant is taken from out of doors and kept in the 
house. I don't believe this geranium will last long. If 
we had room on the porch we might keep it there." 
But we had no room on the porch. 

Months passed. Gradually the geranium was reach- 
ing nearer and nearer the ground. At last it seemed 
like another kind of plant. We could hardly relate 
those crawling stalks to the beauty we had first seen, 
so vital, so ambitious, seeming to reach out to the sky. 
Most of the flowers had disappeared. Some of the 
branches looked as if they had become paralyzed. One 
was seemingly dead. Two bore a few delicate blossoms, 
white and single. 

128 



A PLANT 

One day came the friend that had taken away the slip. 
Some instinct at once led him to that geranium. "Hello !" 
he said, and he bent forward as a doctor might bend at a 
bedside. He made regretful sounds as he examined the 
prostrate stalks and the withering leaves and the sickly 
blossoms. 

Rapidly I proceeded to tell about the drooping of the 
plant. As he listened he kept bending forward. Not 
once did he look at me. Finally he stood up. There was 
an expression of impatience in his face. 

"Don't you see what you have done*?" he said. 

I was surprised. "What I have done?" I repeated, feel- 
ing resentful. 

"You have just about ruined this plant." 

"Oh, by keeping it indoors*?" I said, feeling myself 
exonerated. 

"Not at all. It would have been all right if you had 
only given it a little care. It needs light. That's 
why it has drooped so and why the blossoms have lost 
their color and life. By just pushing this table in 
front of the window you might have kept it in fine con- 
dition. Look at these stalks. See how they have tried 
to reach the light. They knew it was their only chance 
of salvation. And these blossoms ! They're like ansemic 
children." 

I lifted the little table with my hands and placed it in 
front of the window. 

"Now we're all right," said the friend cheerfully. "Just 
wait and see what will happen." 

Now, nearly two months later, the geranium is gradual- 
ly rising from the ground. It has several single blossoms, 
of a pale pink, and one double blossom of the same shade. 
It still shows that it has suffered. But it seems happy. 
All day long it drinks in the light. Some day I believe it 
really will thrive again. 

129 



A PLANT 

N 

Yesterday I went to the country to see our friend. He 
took me into his garden. He pointed to a large geranium, 
lusty and radiant, with rose-pink flowers, very like the 
plant I had taken from its soil. 

"There's your slip," he said. "See what you can do 
when you give a plant a chance." 



130 



NERVES OF SYMPATHY 

ONE NIGHT, during a theatrical performance, as I 
was standing with an actor friend in the wings of a 
theatre, a very pretty and clever young girl came 
off the stage. As soon as she passed out of sight of the 
audience she uttered a little exclamation of impa- 
tience: "Awful people!" she said. "They haven't any 
nerves." 

When the girl had passed up the corridor to her dress- 
ing-room, I turned to the actor beside me and I asked him 
what she had meant. He replied with a smile: "Oh, 
that's a little expression of hers. She often uses it. She 
means that those people aren't sympathetic and quick to 
catch on. They sit there like blocks of wood. They 
don't come prepared to appreciate the good points. So 
they can't establish any relation with the play or the 
actors." 

Since that time I have often thought of the expression, 
"They haven't any nerves." I have been surprised to find 
how aptly it applies to many people in life and how 
clearly it explains many situations. 

Whenever I go into a hall where I am to give a lecture 
I find myself glancing quickly over the faces in the audi- 
ence for signs of nerves. As a rule, I see at once a few 
faces that appear to be sympathetic. Those people, I 
know, are likely to have nerves. Often as I go on talking 
I pick out certain of the faces and, scarcely realizing what 
I am doing, I speak to them. Other speakers have told 
me that they do the same thing. 

There are people that I see in audiences who cause me 
apprehension and dread. The mere sight of them sug- 
gests that they have no nerves. Often, I am sure, I do 

131 



NERVES OF SYMPATHY 

them a great injustice. The stolid, half-challenging, 
half-resentful look in their eyes may not really represent 
what is going on in their minds and in their sympathies. 

Most of all, in lectures, I fear children. Of course, 
they ought not to be there. As a rule, they have no 
nerves of sympathy. I am always sorry for the mischance 
that has brought them; but I am more sorry for myself. 
For the presence of listeners without nerves of sympathy 
may be a serious distraction to those about them, as well 
as a disturbance to the lecturer. Often, in the middle of 
a talk, the children become fearfully bored with the lec- 
ture and resort to giggling and whispering, sometimes to 
loud talking. The parents that have brought them evi- 
dently have no realization of the distress they may cause 
the lecturer or the damage they may do to the lecture. 

On one occasion I witnessed a scene, both comic and 
pitiful, where a whole audience was virtually without 
nerves. It was at an entertainment in a settlement house 
in the East Side in New York. A large audience had 
gathered to hear some professional actors, belonging to an 
excellent company then playing on Broadway. These 
actors had very generously accepted an invitation to come 
to this alien world and to entertain the people of the 
neighborhood. One of them, a very gifted interpreter 
of character parts, proceeded to recite the dramatic poem, 
"Laska." At first the people listened with curiosity. As 
the poem grew more impassioned and the actor became 
more tragic in his interpretation, they began to laugh. 
The actor, evidently believing that he could conquer 
through intensity, grew more intense. The audience 
laughed more uproariously. For several moments the con- 
test went on between audience and actor. It resulted in 
a complete victory for the audience. During the last 
verse, though the voice of the actor could be heard, the 
words were completely drowned in shouts of merriment. 

132 



NERVES OF SYMPATHY 

The actor left the stage, covered with perspiration, the 
hall resounding with satirical applause. 

Of course that audience behaved very rudely. But 
the situation was comprehensible. The listeners were not 
used to that kind of emotional expression. They had no 
nerves that enabled them to respond to it. It merely 
impressed them as ridiculous. So the reaction was alto- 
gether normal. 

I don't know whether the actor realized this working 
of cause and effect. If he did, perhaps the realization 
gave him no comfort. He did not venture out again. 

I once took a friend to see a performance of Suder- 
mann's play, "Magda." I had seen it several times and 
each time, instead of enjoying it less, I enjoyed it more. 
Although my friend did not care particularly for the 
literary drama, I felt sure that this play would appeal 
to him. To my disappointment, he looked on with an 
expression in his face of utter fatigue. He felt no sym- 
pathy for the distracted Magda and her troubles. The 
play impressed him as much ado about nothing. It 
was simply that he was lacking in the kind of nerves 
that would enable him to establish a sympathetic rela- 
tion with the people on the stage and their doings. 
Naturally, he considered "Magda" a bad play and he 
said so quite frankly. It did not occur to him that the 
fault, if there were any fault, might lie in himself. 

Here indeed is the explanation of many of our dis- 
appointments in life and in those reproductions of life 
that we call art. We are simply lacking in the kind of 
nerves that would enable us to appreciate them. 

You know, of course, that oft quoted saying of Goethe's 
that in traveling we get from a new place what we take 
there. It applies not only to places, but virtually to 
everything else in life. It all depends on our nerves. If 

133 



NERVES OF SYMPATHY 

we reach out sympathetically to the whole world the 
whole world reaches out to us. Then life becomes for us 
a multitude of opportunities for both giving and receiving, 
for the enjoying of rare experiences each day. 

So it might seem as if it might be worth our while 
to see whether we were well supplied with sympathetic 
nerves and to be solicitous about preserving and devel- 
oping those we have. 



134 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

DID YOU happen to read in a newspaper a short 
time ago about the New York man who tried to 
make his quietus? He was carried off in an ambu- 
lance, seriously injured. On the way to the hospital the 
ambulance became involved in a collision. Several per- 
sons were hurt. 

In the excitement the would-be suicide forgot about 
himself and gave efficient help. 

As soon as we forget ourselves we forget our troubles. 

This ordinary fact of experience we all know. The 
marvel is that we don't act on it more. 

So often we see the best way for ourselves and we delib- 
erately choose the worst. 

"When you feel depressed, do something for some one 
else," is an idea, in one form or another, dinned into our 
minds. 

In fact, we hear it so often that for many of us the 
words have lost their meaning. 

Here is one of the dangers of wise sayings. 

Do you suppose that would-be suicide will profit by the 
lesson he had on the way to the hospital ? 

Will he sink back into the morbid habit of thinking that 
made his life intolerable? 

Was his attempt to destroy his life merely one of those 
impulses that have only a transient meaning? 

On leaving the hospital will he accept life again as 
normal people do? 

Will he even enjoy living? 

135 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

A woman of my acquaintance prides herself on her skill 
in palmistry. 

She knows a good deal about the subject. 

She knows much more about human weaknesses. 

And she relies far less on her knowledge of palmistry 
than on her knowledge of human weaknesses. 

One of her greatest effects she makes by saying : "You 
have thought of committing suicide." 

The first time I heard her say it was to an elderly 
man, prosperous and apparently happy. He grew pale 
and then red. 

The woman glowed as people do in the consciousness 
of success. 

Then she said, apparently fixing her eyes on the lines 
of the hand : "But you will never do it." 

Afterward I watched her as she repeated this effect. 
The subject was a young girl. 

The girl's agitation was painful to see. 

"But you will never do it," the palmist said impres- 
sively, with her eyes close to that long and beautiful hand. 

It was a wicked thing to do, but the soothing reference 
to the future showed that the woman had some con- 
science. 

She was probably afraid of the power of suggestion. 

Nevertheless she had to gratify her own vanity, as so 
many of us do, even at the cost of another's pain. 

That palm reader took an unworthy advantage of her 
knowledge that every human life has its moments of 
intense depression, of something like despair. 

Lately people have come forward proffering aid to 
their fellow-creatures in such trial. They suggest many 
things, including rest, relaxation, fresh air, exercise, self- 
forgetfulness, service. 

For many such advice is helpful. For many others 
it is not easy to follow. 

136 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

Think, for example, of advising a man who can get 
no work to do, who sees his family in want, think of 
telling him to be of service to the world. Such counsel 
would make him long to commit murder. 

The best we can do for those that find life almost 
unendurable is to help remedy the conditions that lie far 
beneath the surface, breaking out into this form of social 
disease as well as into many other forms. And there is 
no evil in life that has such varied and far-reaching 
expressions, all tending to weaken the life instinct, as 
social injustice. 

If we could trace the causes of the attempts to commit 
suicide throughout the world we should find that in nearly 
every instance they were in some way related to our false 
and unstable conditions of living, to our having either too 
little or too much. 

Many years ago something happened in our neighbor- 
hood that left an impression on me I shall always retain. 

A little girl was taken from an orphan asylum by 
some Christian people. The mother in the family was 
in purpose an excellent woman, but a martinet. 

She had no sympathy with the weaknesses and the 
faults of that child. 

She assumed that the child had a bad inheritance. So 
she was always on the watch for evil. 

And when people are looking for a thing they usually 
find it. They always find it when it is evil and when they 
wish to see it. 

Daily, hourly, that woman tried to lead the child 
toward perfection by the hideous avenues of torment. 

One day the child went down to the beach. As it was 
out of season the people who lived nearby wondered 
what she was doing there. 

To their amazement they saw her walk slowly into the 
water. 

137 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

They rushed to her and forced her to come back. 
The incident created excitement in the neighborhood. 
Feeling ran high. 

It put that excellent Christian woman in an unpleasant 
position. 

Children often long to make their quietus — well-mean- 
ing grown-ups persecute them so. 

I often wonder there remains in the world as much 
goodness as there is. Grown-ups make it so hateful to chil- 
dren that one might fancy they would loathe it all their 
lives. ' 

One might fancy, too, that the new generation would 
put an end to goodness for all time, would forbid its ever 
being mentioned. 

But the sufferers forget their torments and pass them 
on to other children, usually to their own children. 

Here is one of the causes of morbid thought and 
impulse in children. 

Many children love to think of themselves as dead 
so that they may enjoy the luxury of fancying the remorse 
and grief of those they are dear to, those who, as they 
believe, have made them unhappy. 

Sometimes they even threaten to kill themselves, hoping 
to strike terror in those about them. 

It is only when they become frantic with resentment 
that they make a real attempt. 

For the life instinct holds them firmly, seldom granting 
to morbid imagination more than a passing indulgence. 

Even among grown-ups it is almost a proverb that those 
who threaten to destroy themselves never carry out the 
threat. 

Usually the threat has no relation to intention. 

It is made simply and solely for the purpose of inspir- 
ing sympathy and exciting terror. 

138 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

In the delightful comedy, "The Royal Family," Cap- 
tain Robert Marshall introduces the figure of a kindly old 
priest, a genial philosopher. That priest delivers a beau- 
tiful speech about the way he would like to rearrange life. 
Instead of having people born young and making them 
grow older and older, he would have them born old and 
make them grow younger and younger. The fancy 
always delights an audience, and wins a burst of applause ; 
but pretty as it is, it seems to me that it is not a real 
improvement on the present arrangement. It would 
make life a recession instead of what it now is, or ought 
to be, a progression. 

For as we grow older we ought to grow, not less and 
less rich in experience, not less and less wise, but wiser and 
wiser and in experience richer and richer. 

And we all know at least a few people who, as they 
go on living, make such a progression. If we study 
their lives we invariably find that they have retained 
their capacity for enjoying life, for keeping their diver- 
sions. 

In many instances we find that they have made all the 
experiences of life a diversion. 

For the great secret seems to be not to turn pleasure into 
occupation, but to turn occupation into pleasure. 

Indifference to life is like our wide-spread indifference 
to our surroundings. At times we all become tired of our 
surroundings or bored. We think of other places, other 
circumstances, and we assure ourselves that if we could 
only be there we should be better off. Sometimes we find 
help in such a change of scene. We return to the old 
scene with new vigor, with freshness of mind that bright- 
ens all the old associations. But if we remain in the new 
scene until it ceases to be new we are likely to fall back to 
the old state of mind. 

The explanation is, of course, that the trouble lies not 

139 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

in our surroundings or in our circumstances, but in our 
attitude of mind. 

So, in the other world, can't you imagine that those 
who violently take themselves off must encounter bitter 
disappointment? Perhaps for a time they know the relief 
that comes with novelty. But, though the scene may be 
different, they remain themselves. 

Often when we think we are tired of the things and the 
people about us, we are really tired of ourselves. 

There is a certain pathos in the efforts recently made by 
the law to restrain suicide by punishment. 

There is even a comic aspect. 

Best of all, there is the evident desire to help. For 
we cannot think of any representative of the law really 
wishing to punish a suicide, to add another burden to a 
life intolerably burdened. 

There must be on the part of those directly concerned 
a swift desire to save, to succor and to console. 

The Salvation Army has lately been trying to do what 
it could for such unfortunates. It seeks to discover causes 
and if possible to secure remedies. Perhaps its work will 
be one of the many ways by which the world shall be 
led to deal with the far-reaching causes that drive people 
into the self-destroying class, making them despair of 
finding help. 

It is obvious that the point of view of such people 
is wrong, for the instant their needs are known they 
receive help. Indeed, the way they are treated when 
they have failed in their purpose shows what an 
ocean of human sympathy lies under our apparent in- 
difference. 

In declaring that it intends to punish suicides the 
law really means that it intends to help them. It strives 
to put a further obstacle in their path. But yet the 
effort toward prevention is largely futile. It is only those 

140 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

who fail that can be helped. The law recognizes that 
these people will be amenable to help. It sees that as 
soon as the interval of despair passes there will be the 
return of reason. It is through this return of reason that 
the law may do the real work, through the intelligent 
guiding that is bound to come when the working of the 
law allies itself more and more closely, as it is now doing, 
with the forces of intelligence. 

In "The Inferno," Dante has given a ghastly picture 
of the souls of suicides. 

Most of us nowadays would consider it far too hor- 
rible to be true. 

And yet, is it unlikely that in the other world, it is 
discreditable not to have accepted life with all its burdens 
and to have endured the burdens to the end*? Is it con- 
ceivable that there is any possible escape? If there are 
burdens here why should there not be burdens there? And 
why should there not be discredit as well as credit? And 
why should there not be a fulfillment there, both of the 
present duties and of the duties avoided elsewhere, 
including the supreme duty of living finely? 

Here we are considering, of course, those cases where 
suicides are not the result of insanity. There are those 
who go so far as to say that there are no such cases, that 
all who destroy themselves are diseased. 

The Catholic Church seems to be inclining toward such 
a view. At any rate, where it once refused to bury sui- 
cides in consecrated ground, it now gives them the benefit 
of the doubt by never refusing them burial. 

On the other hand, the Romans made a fine art of self- 
destruction. They carried life to so high a degree of art 
that they made self-slaughter artistic. 

But life is much greater than an art. It is greater 
even than a duty. It is, perhaps, a combination of both, 
with something added. 

141 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

And no art can transcend making life consistent and 
whole, seeing it through to the end, without surrender. 

Many years ago a steamer in Long Island Sound caught 
fire. Hundreds of people went to their death. In the 
excitement a well-dressed man stood on the upper deck 
and looked down. He saw there was no possible escape. 
He drew a pistol from his pocket and shot himself. 

The act struck me at the time as selfish. 

And yet there are doubtless people who would consider 
it courageous. 

But how ruthless it was of that man to separate him- 
self from the ordeal that so many had to bear together, 
and to add to the horror of the scene another horror. 

I recently heard a startling story showing a curious 
freak of life instinct. 

A very highly accomplished and charming woman of 
New York, who, in her youth, had made an unfortunate 
marriage, leading to divorce, reached happiness at last 
through marriage with a man of distinguished ability 
and generous character. 

Her first husband had forced her to leave him by his 
persistent dissipation. One day her second husband read 
in the newspaper that, from a debauch, his predecessor 
had met with a terrible accident and was lying danger- 
ously ill in a charity hospital. He showed his wife the 
newspaper item and he said: "Now that man was once 
very dear to you. In his misery it seems to me that he 
has some sort of claim. At any rate, I think we ought to 
do something for him." He then proposed that he take 
the man out of the hospital to his home and have him 
cared for. The wife agreed. The next day the man, 
broken in body and spirit, was brought to the house and 
tenderly nursed for several weeks. One day he was left 
alone for a few moments. Then he was found dead in 

142 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

bed with a pistol at his side. One cannot be sure whether 
he killed himself during a sudden attack of despair or 
from shame, from the self-reproaches caused by such kind- 
ness. 

There is a story told about Napoleon after the battle of 
Waterloo. Some one, realizing that he was ruined, offered 
him poison. He shook his head and replied : "Never do a 
thing you can never regret." These words subtly con- 
veyed the strongest of all arguments against suicide. At 
any rate, so far as this life is concerned, suicide is final. 
It rejects all possible wisdom and hope and retrievement 
that may lie in the future. It is identifying oneself for 
all times with failure and with weakness. 

One wonders what those people who take themselves 
off think of those left behind, those they were near to and 
dear. 

Perhaps they don't think. 

The act may in itself be evidence that they can't think. 

Richard Hodgson, for many years secretary of the 
Society for Psychical Research, was the only healthy- 
minded man I ever knew who wanted to die. 

And yet he had that most delightful of all qualities, 
the quality educators ought to foster in students to the 
highest degree, intellectual and social and moral curi- 
osity. 

This curiosity is so different from petty curiosity, that 
most contemptible of qualities, it's a pity the same word 
is applied to both. 

But Hodgson had a still greater curiosity, also noble 
in its nature and deeply human, a desire to know what 
went on in the life beyond. 

He used to say that he could hardly wait for his time 
to come. 

Meanwhile, however, he went cheerfully on with his 

H3 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

tasks and with his play. Besides being a great worker, 
he was a great tennis player, a great walker and a great 
swimmer, a hearty, wholesome Englishman. 

One day, in the midst of his activities, he dropped dead. 

When I heard of his death I had a feeling of elation. 

The world was the poorer for the loss of that bright 
spirit. But he had gone where he longed to be, to a new 
and absorbing field of activity. 

And now it is reported that he is continuing his old 
work, trying to connect the two worlds. The only differ- 
ence is that he is working from the other side. 

It takes a terrible amount of suffering to weaken the 
life instinct. And it takes a trifling circumstance to 
restore it to vigor. 

William Dean Howells once gave an illustration in 
a story. A highly emotional European decided to com- 
mit suicide. He was going to throw himself from a 
height. On his way to the place his hat blew off. He 
became so absorbed in his chase for the hat that he forgot 
his morbid purpose. 

I know men who say they are tired and they wouldn't 
mind if death came tomorrow. Most of them add that 
they have no desire ever to wake up. 

Of course they are sick. 

They have lost the appetite for living, exactly as some 
sick people lose the appetite for food. 

Their senses are dulled, those precious agents of whole- 
some enjoyment. 

Maybe they have fatigued the senses by using them 
unwholesomely. 

Maybe they have made their senses unwholesome by 
letting themselves think in unwholesome ways. 

Often they need only rest. 

Far more often, I suspect, they need a new point of 
view. 

144 



THE LIFE INSTINCT 

Occasionally the trouble comes from a flaw in cur 
machinery, physical, mental or moral. 

Sometimes we call it a kink. 

It behooves us to watch out for such kinks and correct 
them. 

The great point is to keep the mind healthy. 

One way is by thinking, not inwardly, as so many of 
us do, but outwardly, not with reference to ourselves 
alone, but with consideration for the rest of the world. 



H5 



SPITE FENCES 

YESTERDAY I went into a very attractive apart- 
ment, on the top floor of a high house, with a fine 
view of the sea. There were windows on three 
sides. But the windows on one side were dark. A high 
fence rose past them a few feet away. 

I asked how that fence happened to be there. Lacon- 
ically the answer came: "Spite!" 

"How did it happen?" I said. 

"The man that lives on the other side of the fence 
lived there for twenty-five years before this building went 
up. He used to enjoy looking out and watching the ships. 
Most of those ships he knew by name. When the pres- 
ent owner bought this property and decided to build he 
objected. You see, he had enjoyed the view so long he 
thought he owned it." 

I couldn't help smiling. Though I sympathized with 
the people occupying the apartment, I was relishing this 
little expression of human nature. 

"I suppose he couldn't afford to buy this property," 
I said. 

"Oh, yes, he could afford it all right. In fact, after 
the property was sold he offered to buy it for the amount 
it had been sold for, and he offered to pay for the archi- 
tect's fees and the other fees that had been paid in the 
drawing of the plans for this house." 

"But he offered no bonus*?" 

"None. When this building was finished he put up 
the fence. Later he said he had put it up in self- 
defense, to hide the sight of the house — it was so ugly." 

There was another delightful illustration of human na- 
ture. In doing this mean act the man made an excuse 
to himself, as most of us do under similar circumstances. 

146 



SPITE FENCES 

He couldn't accept his meanness as part of himself. 
So he called it by another name. 

Since that conversation I have been thinking about the 
monuments of spite that we see about us. Nearly every 
community has at least one spite house. And spite fences 
are common. 

Often the grievances that lead to the feeling of spite 
are just as unreal as the grievance of that property owner 
who thought he owned his view. If we could examine 
them we should find that in most instances they could be 
traced to egotism. And egotism is always due to defec- 
tive imagination. If we could realize others as intensely 
as we realize ourselves we should be far less egotistical, 
far less clamorous for what we call our rights, and far less 
eager to inflict torment on ourselves by striving to tor- 
ment others. 

For all monuments of spite are expressions of self- 
torment. 

These monuments, it is true, give to some natures a 
delirious joy. But the greater the joy the greater the 
pain that has gone before and that still lies behind and is 
sure to reassert itself. 

For spite is only a transient relief for pain. It may 
be the means of causing more pain to the spiteful. 

The more revenge we secure for our wrongs, real 
or fancied, the more those wrongs are likely to pursue 
us. 

A philosopher of my acquaintance, on returning here 
from Europe, found himself involved with the customs 
authorities. They made him pay several hundred dol- 
lars which he had good reason to believe he should not 
have paid. But the technicalities of the law were against 
him. He was broad-minded enough to see that the cus- 
toms authorities, from their point of view, were doing 

147 



SPITE FENCES 

their duty. It seemed that there was only one thing to 
do, to take the matter into court. But the case was likely 
to be irritating and tedious. It would encroach on his 
time, which was valuable, and it would cause him a great 
deal of inconvenience. After thinking the matter over, 
he decided that it would not pay him to go to law. So he 
dismissed the matter from his mind. 

How many of us would have had the self-control and 
the simple common sense to take this course 4 ? Most of us 
would have allowed the injustice to rankle. Some of us 
would have tried to get even with the authorities. Under 
certain conditions, some of us might hsve resorted to 
crime or to what would be regarded as crime. 

And all such resistance would have brought out a 
frenzy of ill feeling, very hard to bear and very like 
the feeling expressed in spite fences. Of course, it would 
have been used to express very noble ideas like justice 
and fair play; but it would really have been the gratifica- 
tion of the injured egotism, which is merely one expres- 
sion of the spirit of revenge. 

We often hear people speak of just revenge. But there 
is no such thing. 

All revenge is unjust revenge, even revenge taken in 
a just cause. And what we call just revenge is as dis- 
tressing to those that secure it as any other kind of 
revenge. 

For where the spirit is revengeful, where it expresses 
wounded egotism, the penalties are inevitable. 

In the complications and in the confusion of life we can 
never secure exact justice. Those who expect it and try 
to get it for themselves are sure to be disappointed. They 
would do far better to devote the energy to doing their 
part in securing justice for others. In this way they will 
put the world in an attitude toward them that will make 

148 



SPITE FENCES 

it easier for them to enjoy life and they will secure some- 
thing that is far better than justice. 

If once we get into the habit of treating the rest of 
the world generously, we shall be surprised to find how 
little we shall have to complain of. 

Consider the case of the owner of that spite fence, for 
example. Suppose he had been more generous in his 
attitude. In losing his view he would have realized how 
lucky he had been to enjoy it for so many years, and he 
would have borne in mind that other people had as much 
right as he had himself to the full value of their property. 
No matter how much regret he might have felt, he would 
have spared himself a vast amount of suffering. Inci- 
dentally, he would have avoided the iniquity of delib- 
erately and wantonly depriving his neighbors of light and 
air. 



149 



THE SHADOW 

IF YOU have read Galsworthy's novel "Fraternity," 
you know what the Shadow is. 
The Shadow is the counterpart of you, the counter- 
part of me. 

For Galsworthy has spread the idea that every one of 
us has his counterpart in the slums. 
The thought is distressing. 

But there are some distressing things that ought to be 
thought of. If we don't think of them there is danger 
of starving the sympathies. 

And it is by our sympathies that we escape from the 
narrowness of our own interests and conceits. 
Suppose for a while we think of the Shadow. 

If you have ever had your double pointed out to you, 
you must remember your surprise and disappointment. 

"What! Do I look like that 4 ?" 

And haven't you noticed how startled you've been on 
suddenly coming upon yourself in a mirror"? There is 
the instinctive impulse to improve yourself by a change 
of expression, or by a touch here and there. 

When we don't wish to appear at our best before our- 
selves we may be sure that we are in a bad way, probably 
morbid. 

And yet if we could get out of ourselves and see our- 
selves from an unbiased point of view, the revelation, 
in spite of the pain, would be wholesome. 

Better still would be the things we should learn from 
our counterparts in the Shadow World. 

We speak of the Shadow World as a world apart, as 

150 



THE SHADOW 

we speak of purgatory or of hell. Yet it merges into our 
own world. 

The Shadow People don't live in the slums all the time. 
They come up into the highways where you and I walk. 

They pass us in the street. Their eyes often meet our 
eyes. Do they recognize us? I wonder. 

Perhaps suffering has made their senses keener than 
ours. And our senses may be blunted by our not wishing 
to recognize them, by our lack of interest. 

If they recognize us, what can they think 1 ? Do they 
feel an impulse to call out for help to those Other 
Selves? 

Do they long to become those Other Selves? Or are 
they seized with a terrible rage against those Other Selves? 
Or are they tempted to curse the human life that permits 
such injustice, such inhumanity? 

However, I am sure the Shadow People don't suspect. 
If they did they couldn't be so patient. They would assert 
the claims of their blood. They would insist that they 
be received into their heritage. 

Often since I heard he was here have I looked for my 
Shadow Man. As I walk along the busy street, I say to 
myself: "Perhaps he is in this crowd, close enough to 
touch. Perhaps he is hungry. Perhaps he is on the verge 
of committing a crime in the hope of escaping from his 
plight." 

It seems strange, impossible. 

And yet so easily I might be in his place. 

If I only felt perfectly sure how I looked I might 
recognize him and speak to him. 

But the thought of standing there in the street and talk- 
ing with my Shadow Man makes me feel uncomfortable. 

Still the idea is fascinating. 
What would he say to me? 

151 



THE SHADOW 

Would he pour out his anguish in a passion of broken 
words'? 

Would he feel that he could speak because at last he 
had found some one that could understand? 

But why should he fancy that I could understand him 
better than any one else? 

Would he be surprised at my willingness to speak to 
him? Would he suspect some selfish motive? 

Surely he would detect my shame. 

Then I said to myself: "How foolish I am, thinking 
of my Shadow as if he were exactly like me with all the 
advantages I have had over him !" 

I was puzzled at finding myself reasoning in this way. 
What were those advantages? Surely they were nothing 
wonderful. They were no more than most of the people 
had that I knew. 

But I couldn't go on with this self-deception. I had 
to look at myself now from the point of view of my 
Shadow. 

I began to see myself with his eyes. 

I acknowledged that in one way I was lucky. I had the 
benefit of long years of schooling. 

Now I felt the eyes of the Shadow fixed upon me. They 
were like my own as they appeared in the mirror, and yet 
they were different, too. 

The difference troubled me. 

And gradually from behind those eyes I could see the 
outlines of a face, vague, distorted. 

Presently the face came forward. 

It revealed itself more definitely. I recognized the 
look often seen in the faces of the poor, the lost look, the 
look turned inward, the look of despair. 

The face came nearer, and nearer, and nearer, grow- 
ing painfully distinct. When it almost touched mine it 
stopped. 

152 



THE SHADOW 

"Have you anything to say 1 ?" I asked. I am afraid my 
voice trembled. 

"You speak for me," my Shadow Man replied. 

In that moment of illusion, when I seemed to face my 
Other Self, I knew how stupid my first idea of my Shadow 
had been. 

How could my Shadow have anything to say to me 
when he hadn't been trained to say anything"? 

He could only feel. 

"Perhaps that is why they always seem so patient," I 
thought. "They have not learned to express their feel- 
ings." 

But as the words passed through my mind I seemed to 
hear that strange voice speaking from a distance, like an 
echo: "Speak for me." 

So I must speak for that Other Self in the slums, my 
Shadow, the man I might have been. 

What could I say*? 

I went back to the beginning. 

We had been alike, my Shadow and I. When came 
the moment that we began to grow apart*? 

Surely it could not have come with the first drops 
drawn from our mothers' breasts. 

Was it when the first sights and sounds broke on our 
consciousness*? Or did we grow, side by side though far 
away, till our longings began to assert themselves, our 
aspirations, our dreams? 

Were his thwarted and stunted while mine were fos- 
tered*? 

He must have gone to school in those early years. All 
boys go to school. Certainly he must have been doing 
just what I did. 

But school isn't everything. There are the influences 
of the home, of the street. 

153 



THE SHADOW 

He was living down there, my Shadow Boy, in the 
slums. 

Already they had closed around him, the shadows of 
that terrible thing the philosophers and the social reform- 
ers call "environment." 

Already they must have caught him. 

Into the shadows he must go deeper, and deeper, and 
deeper. 

And now I feel as if I were parting from my Shadow 
Man. But how can I part from him 1 ? Is he not going 
through life with me 1 ? So long as I stay, he stays. 

What did he do at the end of his brief schooling? Did 
he become one of the millions that trudge wearily to work 
in the early morning and tend a machine till nightfall 1 ? 

How long did it take to make him forget his early 
hopes and ambitions'? 

Perhaps he didn't forget. Perhaps at night when he 
returned home he would try to lead the life of the imagi- 
nation. 

Did it take him years to realize that he was in the grip 
of fate? 

Did he try to resist? 

Perhaps he didn't even try. 

Would I have tried under the same circumstances, 
worn out in body and brain? Certainly not. 

Then I thought of his years of monotonous labor, of 
tread-mill routine, of under-pay. 

But these things seemed almost Paradise compared 
with the times when there was a worse monotony, 
idleness, when there was no work and no pay. 

The eyes of my Shadow told me there had been many 
such times. 

Suppose, on the other hand, my Shadow and I had 
changed places. 

154 



THE SHADOW 

Suppose it were he who had the chances. 

He might have done more with them. He might have 
done the things I had left undone, the things I had only- 
dreamed. 

Perhaps, in the economy of things, here lies the greatest 
waste. It may be it is I, who, in some mysterious way, 
have cheated him out of his birthright, it is I who should 
be in his place. 

And the counterpart of you — think about him! Ask 
yourself if you have done as well by your chances as he 
might have done if they had been his chances. 

And if you are a woman, let your heart go out to 
that Shadow in the slums. 

For terrible as poverty is to a man it is far more terrible 
to a woman. It may drive her into degradation worse 
than death. 

This thought you might keep in mind when you are 
tempted to condemn the women of the streets. 

Those women are Shadows of women as good as you. 
And if Environment had been more merciful they might 
have been good women, too. 

Shall we let them stay there, the Shadow People? Shall 
we not lift a finger to help them escape? 

It seems a hopeless task. They are millions. And each 
one of us is only one. 

But if we would only work together how easy the 
task would be. 

If we will not help them to escape, there is something 
else we can do. 

We can help them to resist Environment. 

And we can help to improve Environment for them. 

And, best of all, we ean help them to help them- 
selves. 

And all these things we may do by forgetting, for a 

155 



THE SHADOW 

moment, about ourselves and thinking of our just relation 
to that strange growth, called Society. 

Already a mighty movement has begun among the 
Shadow People. It recognizes their claim on one another. 
It asserts their claim on us. 

And when they find that each of them has an Other 
Self among us the claim will be all the stronger. 

But before that day comes why cannot we be great 
enough to acknowledge the relation and to live up to it in 
all its responsibilities, in all its joys? 



156 



INTERFERING 

YESTERDAY I walked along the street in an un- 
comfortable state of mind. I had just received a let- 
ter from a friend, telling of something he had done, 
something I disapproved. I felt sure that he had blun- 
dered. I blamed him severely. If he had been present it 
would have been a relief to me to express myself. I de- 
cided to write to him. Then I began to plan the letter. 
I grew more excited, more uncomfortable. I walked 
rapidly. 

Then I realized. 

I said to myself: "Why are you letting yourself to 
be so upset"? What concern is it of yours 1 ? You aren't 
the one that made the blunder. And, after all, the 
blunder may be only in your imagination. Besides, if 
it really is a blunder, there is no reason why you should 
interfere or be disturbed. Now that the thing is done 
your excitement and interference could do no good what- 
ever." 

Instantly I felt relieved. It was as if a burden had 
lifted itself from my consciousness and lightly floated 
away. 

I looked about, surprised. The air was full of sun- 
shine. People were walking briskly about. Life was 
still beautiful. 

I had been letting a matter that was no rightful con- 
cern of mine darken my day. 

In my relief I caught myself smiling. I felt as we 
all feel on waking from a bad dream. 

Many of our troubles are only bad dreams. 

Many of our troubles are not our troubles at all. 
They are other people's troubles. And to the other peo- 
ple what we call troubles may not be troubles. 

157 



INTERFERING 

Many of our troubles are merely creations of imagina- 
tion, due to our failure to see that each of us must bear 
his responsibilities, must work out his own life. 

If we would only stop interfering with one another 
in matters that were no concern of ours we should find 
that most of the petty irritations of daily living would 
disappear. We should get along together more easily, 
more pleasantly. And we should have more physical 
and nervous and moral energy to meet our own responsi- 
bilities. 

We all interfere, even those of us who dislike being 
interfered with and oppose the practice. 

Interference is one of our many ways of preying on one 
another. And it is one of the hardest of all habits to 
check in oneself. 

The reason is that, as a rule, interference, besides being 
closely related to exaggerated self-confidence, is the 
expression of a good impulse. 

It takes some thought for most of us to see that unless 
we exercise care, interference may easily become a nui- 
sance and a tyranny. 

Often when people get into trouble as a result of inter- 
fering in matters that don't concern them they say some- 
thing like: "But I did that out of pure kindness." 

They don't stop to think that, as a motive, pure 
kindness is not enough. It ought to be reasonable 
kindness. 

Where kindness is reasonable it seldom leads to inter- 
ference. 

For it is of the essence of kindness to give to others as 
much freedom of will as we like to have for ourselves. 

In this matter one sex is more often at fault than the 
other. It is the more sympathetic in the smaller affairs of 
life, sometimes in the larger affairs, too. The considera- 

158 



INTERFERING 

tion may lead to repeated interference in the smaller 
affairs, where interference is most trying. 

This kind of interference makes little things difficult. 
It sometimes makes daily living consist of a series of 
entanglements, of discussions, of arguments, about mat- 
ters that are not worth noticing. 

To escape such entanglements there are many who 
resort to all kinds of concealments, subterfuges and 
deceit. 

I have lately seen a play, written by a wOman, that offers 
a curious example of interference from the feminine point 
of view. The hero, a distinguished physician, after a 
sleepless night, appears in the early morning feeling worn 
out. A man friend asks him if he doesn't want breakfast. 
He replies that he doesn't feel like eating breakfast. The 
friend insists. The physician shows annoyance. Then the 
friend arranges a little table, orders breakfast and the phy- 
sician finally eats. 

The scene is presented as humorous. The interfering 
friend is held up as generous, as doing a sympathetic and 
likable action. 

He is, of course, a bore. If he had really been the kind 
of man the author had wished him to seem to be, he 
would have let the physician alone. 

Moreover, the whole scene was unmasculine. It could 
not have occurred between men. 

But it could have occurred between some women. 

This kind of thing kind women do to one another all 
the time. They do it also to men, except where men resist 
it and resent it. Even then they sometimes do it, very 
kind and very unwise women. 

For very kind women find the habit of interfering 
almost impossible to give up. 

They cannot see that kindness may be a form of self- 
indulgence. 

159 



INTERFERING 

There are people, however, that like to be interfered 
with. They are usually to be found among those who 
expect and demand attention. Without it they feel 
that they are neglected. They illustrate one of the most 
unpleasant kinds of egotism and selfishness. The more 
they are interfered with the more their selfishness is 
encouraged. Often they succeed in making the inter- 
feres, the natural tyrants, their slaves. 

They let the interferes do much of their thinking 
and their work for them. And, as a rule, the more they 
let the interferes do for them the more they exact. 

They tyrannize over their tyrants. 

Children are the greatest of all sufferers from interfer- 
ence. Sometimes they resent it bitterly. Sometimes it crip- 
ples them for life. For interference tends to damage initia- 
tive. It may completely destroy initiative in the young. 
It resists the law of nature that encourages the young to 
do things voluntarily, spontaneously, by imitation. 

Just as in adults, however, so in children interference 
may lead to their establishing a tyranny over the 
tyrants. 

There are no greater tyrants in the world than children 
spoiled by interference, by affectionate relatives who are 
continually trying to thwart them and to do things for 
them. 

I once happened to be present when a little girl, three 
of four years old, was dressing. It was interesting to 
see her reach out for the garments held by her mother. 
She plainly wished to dress herself. She was giving 
expression to a strong initiative, a valuable quality. But 
her mother wished to have the pleasure of dressing her. 
child. Instead of giving up each garment, she would care- 
fully adjust it in place. Incidentally she was interfering 
with the child's initiative, making it weaker in the direc- 
tion of self-help. 

160 



INTERFERING 

I saw that girl grow up. In everything she did she 
showed her natural initiative. And this initiative was 
continually thwarted through the love of the mother. It 
was too strong to be destroyed. It simply took a new 
turn. Instead of leading to self-control and energy, it led 
to selfishness and the control of the mother. 

That child is a woman now, with children of her own. 
Her mother lives with her and takes care of the children. 
She herself spends most of her time in changing her 
clothes, going to the theater and playing bridge. 

I sometimes hear a man say, in presence of his very kind 
wife, "Oh, my dear, I want to do that wrong. Let me do 
it wrong." 

I have noticed that the moment he uses those words 
his wife stops interfering. Then, in his own way, he does 
some trifling act, like pulling down the window-shade or 
stirring the grate fire. 

His humorous habit of defending himself from petty 
interference at home has made his wife conscious of 
the little fault in her character. The humor in it, empha- 
sized by repetition, operates as a check and keeps her from 
feeling hurt. 

There is a very important principle in the saying of 
that husband. It ought to be kept in mind by every one 
of us. 

We all like to do little things in ways that other people 
may consider wrong. And though those ways might be 
wrong for other people, they may be right for us. At any 
rate, they are our ways, for us the easiest and best, 
because spontaneous. They are likely to express deep- 
seated qualities. 

And for us the right ways of other people may be 
wrong, the hardest and the least desirable because im- 
posed from the outside. They may be in conflict with 
our natural tendencies and impulses. 

161 



INTERFERING 

Moreover, wrong ways may be valuable. They may 
lead to salutary mistakes. They may open up rich 
sources of wisdom. 

The best lessons of life are the lessons of our own 
blunders. 

The interferers of the world often interfere with the 
best lessons of life. 



162 



THINKING 

WE ARE learning to think about right thinking. 
Never before in the history of the world has 
thinking been so much thought about and talked 
about. There are those who go so far as to say that it is 
the most important of all subjects. Their reason is that 
it reaches to the roots of our being, not only to 
the cause of our actions, but to the vital principles of 
the soul. 

One might fancy from our talk about thinking that its 
importance had only lately been discovered. Here we 
yield to the pleasant illusion that makes us deny the say- 
ing, "There's nothing new under the sun." 

As soon as civilization began there must have been 
those who realized the importance of thinking. The 
mediseval philosophers were fascinated by the technicali- 
ties of thinking. Surely writers like Marcus Aurelius and 
Shakespeare understood as clearly as we do. All religions 
have taught the wisdom of wholesome thinking, its neces- 
sity for right living and for salvation. 

We like to speak of "new thought" as if it had been 
discovered the day before yesterday, just as we like to 
speak of other factors in our civilization as if they had 
never existed before. 

And yet we know that human life runs in circles. In 
the past we are constantly finding proofs that we are 
merely repeating the experiences of other ages. 

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes 
it so." 

Here is the whole story, beautifully expressed by 
Shakespeare. From this clew one might work out the 
whole philosophy of thinking. 

163 



THINKING 

If vileness does not exist outside ourselves, if it exists 
only in our thinking, then our thinking must have the 
power of creation. 

If we think of all things as vile, they become, to us, 
really vile. 

The vile things become established in our minds. 

There they create vileness. 

If we think of people as vile, the people become, in our 
minds, really vile. They, too, create in our minds what 
we call vileness, which is, as a matter of fact, only our 
own vileness. 

And if we think of life as vile it becomes vile. 
Wherever we turn, wherever we look, we find ourselves 
enveloped in vileness. 

Such an attitude toward life would, of course, become 
intolerable. It would lead to a poisoning of the whole 
nature. To most of us the consequences are prohibitive. 
We cannot endure going to such an extreme. 

Those who do go to such an extreme become ill. 

Sometimes they isolate themselves. Sometimes they 
have to be put away. Sometimes they perish. 

But there are many of us who go part of the way. We 
have evil thoughts. And the evil we attribute to things 
and to people outside becomes part of us. Often it causes 
us great suffering. Always it creates in us bitterness of 
spirit. 

Sometimes the thoughts are tucked away in our con- 
sciousness and mercifully segregated by nature, just as 
physical poisons are often segregated so that the whole 
system may not be infected. Occasionally, the hideous 
thoughts will escape from their prisons and torment us. 
The oftener they escape the easier it becomes for them to 
escape. They may even refuse to go back to their cells. 
Like swarming foes they take possession of the citadel of 
the mind, creating disorder and misery. 

164 



THINKING 

What are we to do if our thoughts of evil master us*? 
How are we to escape? 

Can we possibly get away from the things that have 
become a part of ourselves, that have, in a sense, actually 
become ourselves? 

For to every one of us it is plain that the philosophers 
are right in saying, "As we think, we are." From daily 
experience every one of us verifies the truth of that saying. 

Moreover, as we are, we think. 

There is continual action between our thinking and our 
being. 

"Oh, if I could only get away from my thoughts!" 
one sometimes hears people exclaim. 

It is just as if they were to say, "Oh, if I could only get 
away from my head!" 

They really mean, whether they are aware or not aware, 
"Oh, if I could only get away from myself !" 

Can we get away from ourselves? 

The philosophers say that we can. And they say that 
escape is easy. It is achieved simply by thinking. 

But already our sickness results from thinking. Our 
sickness actually is thinking. How can more thinking 
help us ? What we long for is not more thinking, but less 
thinking, no thinking at all. 

The philosophers, however, say that unwholesome 
thinking can be made into wholesome thinking simply by 
our realizing the nature of thinking. 

All we have to do is to take a new point of view. 

You must often have noticed how different things may 
seem when viewed from different angles. From one angle 
a thing may seem ugly, and from another angle it may 
seem beautiful. 

And yet we say that the ugliness and the beauty lie in 
the things themselves. 

165 



THINKING 

They really lie in us, in our way of looking. 

We see, for instance, two people in exactly the same 
circumstances subject to the same influences. One will be 
serene, perhaps happy; the other will be discontented, per- 
haps miserable. Each may think that the explanation lies 
in things outside. But we know that such cannot be the 
case. For the same things could not result so differently. 

The real explanation lies, of course, in the minds of the 
two, in the thoughts, in the point of view. 

There are those who go so far as to say there are no such 
things in the world as things. What we call material is, 
according to their theory, only the creation of conscious- 
ness. 

Suppose they are right. Then the importance of keep- 
ing our minds wholesome becomes paramount. There is 
no getting away from it. 

But even if the theory is unsound does it not really find 
a certain justification in practice? 

But there are those who consider this theory intolerable, 
the intensely practical people. They know perfectly well 
that some things are bad and some things are good, and 
that there are good people and bad people. Their realiza- 
tion of goodness and badness they express with feeling. 
The thought of goodness infuses in them good feeling. 
The thought of badness infuses in them bad feeling. So 
even they must admit that they are influenced by what 
they think, and they must know that if they could only 
have good thoughts all the time, or rather, thoughts of 
goodness, they would feel very much better. 

Here they may be inclined to develop more ill feeling, 
the ill feeling that accompanies censure and resentment. 

"We are not in any way to blame if there is badness in 
the world," they may say. 

Is it true that they are not in any way to blame*? 

166 



THINKING 

There is no doubt that resentment and censure with all 
the accompanying ill feeling work fearful damage in the 
world. They surely create more resentment and more 
censure. They are among the most disturbing factors in 
life. They maintain the undercurrent of turmoil. 

Incidentally, they doubtless do some good. They check 
many things that we regard as evil. 

But is it not possible that by another method, the 
method of encouraging goodness by having good thoughts, 
all the wholesome consequences might be achieved, to- 
gether with a great many more consequences now lost, 
making for the deepening of goodness and for the spread 
of goodness*? 



167 



THRIFTLESSNESS 

WE OFTEN hear that the poor are thriftless. In 
the charge there is much truth. If the poor were 
thrifty they would not be poor. In fact, all they 
have to do in order to escape from their poverty is to 
become thrifty. Each day of their lives this lesson is 
brought home to them. And yet they do not profit. In 
many cases, instead of becoming less poor, they grow 
poorer. 

No wonder that many of us are tempted to say: "It 
is all their own fault." The logic is plain. 

As a class, there are no people so extravagant as the 
poor. In this regard they outdo even many of the rich. 
For, as a rule, the rich are thrifty. No matter how much 
they may spend, at the end of the year they manage to 
have more money than they had the year before. They 
know that money breeds money, just as the poor know 
that poverty breeds poverty. 

And yet, the poor will persist in being poor, in con- 
tinuing the extravagances that keep them from becoming 
thrifty and that tend to deprive them of the very neces- 
saries of life. 

Consider, for example, the amounts that the poor pay 
for rent alone. In the first place, they cannot afford to 
pay rent at all. The money they give to landlords in a 
few years would be enough to buy large tracts of land 
and to pay for the building of houses, where they could 
live in comfort. Nevertheless, they go on paying rent, 
and ridiculously high rent, too. For a few wretched 
rooms, often dirty and ill-smelling, they will pay far more 
than the legal rate of interest would be on the value of 

168 



THRIFTLESSNESS 

the property. It is notorious that tenements occupied by 
the poor are among the most profitable real estate invest- 
ments in the world. And yet, as we all know, the land- 
lords are often cheated by the tenants. For, among the 
poor, there are many who either will not or cannot pay 
their bills. Nevertheless, the landlords make up for 
the loss. How do they do it? The way is perfectly 
simple. They take advantage of the thriftlessness of 
the poor. Those that do pay their rents make up for the 
loss by paying more than their share. 

We are told how careful the thrifty people are in their 
purchasing. The poor, being thriftless, are the most reck- 
less purchasers. Think of the way they buy coal. By 
the basket ! If they thought about the matter at all they 
would know that buying coal by the basket is fearfully 
extravagant. The only way to buy coal is in large quan- 
tities. Suppose the railroads of the country bought their 
coal by the basket. Any railroad that tried the experi- 
ment would soon go out of business. It would be gobbled 
up by one of the other railroads. 

The poor show a similar extravagance in buying food. 
Often they pay money for food that is hardly fit to eat. 
Many judicious people, rather than eat such food, would 
prefer to go hungry. They would feel that in hunger 
there was less danger. And, in the buying of liquid food, 
including milk, so necessary to children, the poor are 
worse than extravagant. They are almost depraved. 
They give money to thrifty milk dealers for milk that 
is so unwholesome as at times to be a deadly poison. In 
other words, from their scanty resources, they pay for 
the privilege of killing their children. Here it would 
seem as if the law might interfere, particularly as it is 
known to have a special fondness for arresting the poor. 
But we never hear of a mother being arrested for prac- 

169 



THRIFTLESSNESS 

ticing such inhumanity on her child. In this matter the 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has 
been exceedingly careless. 

The thriftlessness of the poor leads to all kinds of 
absurd notions that tend to make the poor poorer. 
There is the matter of taxation. The poor think that 
they pay no taxes. Often, as a result, they are made to 
feel ashamed. In some States men who are too poor 
to pay a poll tax are not allowed to vote. And yet, even 
they are paying taxes all the time, indirectly, in rent and 
in the cost of necessaries. 

Occasionally the poor are reminded of what they owe 
to the tax payers. For example, in New York City, 
there are public baths in the poor districts, rather hand- 
some structures, with inscriptions, bearing legends of this 
kind: "Dedicated by the City of New York to the 
People of New York." These public baths the poor 
regard as a gift. They are expected to feel grateful to 
the city. Often they are grateful. It does not occur 
to them that they are themselves part of the city, that 
they help to create the city, and that often they pay for 
those bath houses with blood, their own and their 
children's. 

On the backs of the poor there is a fearful burden. It 
is bearing them down. It is wearing out their strength. 
No wonder that so many of them, as they walk along 
the street at the end of the day, look so tired and 
depressed, instead of standing erect, chest out, lungs 
deeply breathing, cheeks and eyes glowing with health, 
showing that they know how to enjoy life. The reason is 
that they are thriftless. They do not realize how many 
precious things, including air and light and sunshine, are 
their rightful inheritance. 

170 



ASKING 

ONE DAY I sat in a fashionable church beside an 
old gentleman. There was beautiful music, bril- 
liant preaching, fervent praying. At the close of 
the service the old gentleman turned to me and said: 
"Whenever I come into a church I imagine that I can see 
a great pile, like a pile of stones, heaped up in front of 
the place where the clergyman conducts the services. It is 
made by the insincere prayers sent toward the throne of 
God. They rise for a few feet and then, of their own 
weight, they fall to the ground." 

Since that time the words have often occurred to me, 
both in churches and outside. 

I wonder if in every church in the world there can be 
a pile of such petrified prayers. 

I recently went to hear a distinguished citizen make a 
public address. Ten thousand people had assembled to 
sit at his feet. Shortly after he appeared and the applause 
had subsided, a clergyman stepped forward and delivered 
what seemed to me to be a remarkable prayer. It was 
remarkable because, according to my way of thinking, 
it was not a prayer at all. It was a speech, apparently 
directed to the Divine Presence, but really addressed to 
that audience. It took up a great deal of time and it 
made the audience impatient and restless. For we had 
come to hear the distinguished citizen, not to give another 
man a chance to exploit himself. 

Then I asked myself if that kind of thing happened 
often and I looked back for similar occasions. From my 
own experience I could recall several instances where 
prayer had been a means of self-exploitation. 

171 



ASKING 

I wonder if all such prayers do not make a large con- 
tribution to those piles of stones in the churches of the 
world, and if they have not done a good deal to weaken 
the influence of prayer in the minds of men. 

Prayer is such a delicate thing, so personal, so intimate, 
so sacred, that the faintest breath of insincerity must defile 
it and change its nature. 

i 

What can the Divine Being think of such prayers'? 
Surely, in His infinite wisdom and patience, He cannot 
think nearly so harshly of them as we, standing apart 
and criticising them, are tempted to think. 

To Him they may be merely expressions of human 
weakness. And from their weakness there may rise a 
powerful appeal. 

So, perhaps, my old gentleman was mistaken in think- 
ing that insincere prayers fell wholly to earth of their 
own weight. 

Perhaps, what falls, if anything falls, is only the pre- 
tension in such prayers, the self-assertion. 

I know a man who boasts that he has no faith in a divine 
power, no faith in another life, no faith in anything that 
cannot in some way be related to physical nature. I 
sometimes call him "the last of the atheists." 

A few years ago disaster fell upon him, crushing, 
overwhelming. But he was not overwhelmed or crushed. 
He stood up, as we say, like a man. After experiences 
that would have broken many a strong spirit, he emerged 
into something like peace again. "During all that time," 
he said to me, "I did not once think of calling on a God 
for help." 

You see, he had kept his pride. 

And though the strength of his pride could keep him 
from breaking, it could not keep him from boasting. 

172 



ASKING 

In my own lifetime the attitude toward atheism and 
toward religion on the part of thoughtful people has 
amazingly changed. I can recall heated arguments that 
I used to hear between the atheists and their opponents, 
resulting in bitter feeling on both sides. Such arguments 
may go on now; but I never hear them. I believe that 
they have become uncommon. Most people who have no 
religious belief are content with saying, "I don't know." 
They have no desire to ridicule belief, or to take it away 
from others. Sometimes they frankly say that they envy 
such a possession. They are likely to base their envy on 
the help that comes from the consciousness of a friendly 
power outside one, a power that can and will sustain, 
whenever it is appealed to, whenever, indeed, there is even 
an unconscious appeal, that is, whenever the mind is in 
sympathy. 

In the beautiful play, "The Dawn of a Tomorrow," 
Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett expresses, in its simplest 
form, the popular attitude in regard to prayer. "It's 
asking," the little heroine repeatedly declares. 

Here we find an echo of the New Testament: "Ask 
and ye shall receive." 

So amazing has been the success in many cases of "ask- 
ing," that the more profane philosophers have lately been 
inquiring into the matter. They have discovered that 
asking has a profound psychological import. They have 
shown that, simply by "asking," without being allied to 
any creed, without making any pretension of faith, one 
can achieve extraordinary results. There is not needed 
the slightest trace of belief in the Divine Power, though 
such belief is a great help, possibly through its strength- 
ening of confidence. The mental healers, for example, 
frankly say that they can do much more with people of 
strong religious faith than with people of no faith at all. 
And yet with people of no faith at all they reach marvel- 

173 



ASKING 

ous results. They persuade their patients to ask, and 
they ask with their patients, and the asking creates a state 
of mind that is healing and inspiring. 

All that one needs is sufficient confidence to ask. 

Where we keep the pores of the body open we may 
still keep the pores of the mind closed. So the mind, 
becoming diseased, infects the body. 

But once let the mind open itself out to spiritual 
thoughts and aspirations and it will take on new health, 
which may extend even into the physical nature. 



174 



DOING THINGS HARD 

THERE is a man of my acquaintance who used to 
pride himself on being industrious. He was 
always boasting about the amount of work he had 
to do. He took pleasure in declining engagements that 
might interfere. Work would pile up around him like 
a mountain. A few years ago he had a rather serious 
nervous breakdown. It gave him a good deal of comfort. 
It enabled him to explain at great length that he was 
suffering from overwork. Of course the doctor made him 
take a vacation. When he went back to his office he fell 
into the old way. A few months later he broke down 
again. This time he was really scared. He consulted a 
distinguished nerve specialist. When he explained what 
a hard worker he was the nerve specialist said: "The 
trouble with you doesn't come from your work. There 
are plenty of men who do as much work as you do and 
more and manage to keep well. Hard work, in itself, 
never hurts any one. What does hurt is taking your work 
hard." 

This experience was rather humiliating for this worker. 
But he had sense enough to profit. He became humble. 
"What do you think I'd better do?" he said. 

The doctor replied: "First, I'd rest for a while. Then 
I'd devote some time to developing interests outside 
work. You have taken your work so hard, you've prob- 
ably destroyed whatever outside interests you used to have. 
After I'd succeeded in developing outside interests I would 
go back to my office and try to learn how to work. I 
would find out the easy way of working. The easy way, 
you know, is always the best way. The hard way is 

175 



DOING THINGS HARD 

alwa)fs the worst way. And, remember, the way of doing 
a thing doesn't lie in the work. It lies in you." 

That man now likes to tell the story on himself. He 
has stopped boasting of being a hard worker. He has 
acquired a few human interests. He has learned to 
make his work easy. He is just as successful as he ever 
was, perhaps more successful, and he has plenty of leisure. 
Incidentally, he has become a much finer human being, 
broader, more social and more likable. For in taking his 
work hard, besides growing narrow, he fostered in himself 
the habit of taking everything hard. He even took life 
hard. And, worst of all, he made life hard for those 
about him. 

I once heard of an old farmer, a wise and kindly man, 
preach on the subject of working. In the community, 
among the mountains of New Hampshire, where I was 
passing a summer, he used to speak in the village hall on 
Sunday mornings. In illustrating the way to meet work, 
he drew his examples from e very-day experience. "You 
know," he said, "how easy it is when you are haying to 
toss a pitchfork of hay into the car. The work requires 
very little strength. It is pleasant, if you go along quietly 
and steadily. But let your work once get away from you 
and, from being in control of it, you will be controlled 
by it and you will lose control of yourself. Once let the 
hay pile up in a great mound and you will be appalled. 
The task of moving it will seem hard. And yet all it 
really amounts to is a single toss of the pitchfork." 

It seemed to me that in those words that old farmer 
had reached a commonplace and yet significant truth. 
The hardest things in life, broken into their elements, 
become the easiest things. By dealing with them, bit by 
bit, they present opportunities for delightful exercise. 

176 



DOING THINGS HARD 

It is only when we look at them in the mass and allow 
them to overawe us that they seem hard and make us 
take them hard. 

I know a man who used to be acquainted with Gladstone. 
He happened to live near Hawarden, where Gladstone 
found diversion in chopping down trees. Occasionally 
he would call there. He said that Gladstone always 
seemed to have plenty of time to receive visitors, never 
betraying the slightest impatience at intrusion. I asked 
him if he could explain the secret. "It was very simple," 
he said. "Gladstone took every experience easily. In the 
first place, he was interested in everything he did and in 
every one he met. No matter where he was, he was always 
getting something out of life. So he had a quiet spirit 
and he could go from one interest to another without 
disturbance or flurry." Here perhaps lay the secret of 
so much accomplishment in one life, as well as the secret 
of its length in years. Gladstone was successful and happy 
because he never took life hard. 

The habit of regarding things as hard and of taking 
them hard explains much of the sickness and failure about 
us. As a matter of fact, when a thing is done in the 
right way it is never hard. Of course, there are tasks 
that some people undertake without having the proper 
qualifications. The fault here lies in their lack of judg- 
ment. Those who perform the most efficient service in 
life are not likely to be called "hard workers." Watch 
them and you will find that they do their work easily and 
contentedly. Nearly always they have a sound mind in a 
sound body, showing that they know not merely how to 
adapt themselves to work, but how to adapt themselves to 
all the other expressions of every-day living. 

Once when Charles W. Eliot, formerly president of Har- 
vard University, was asked if he were traveling abroad 

177 



DOING THINGS HARD 



for the purpose of taking a rest, he replied with a smile : 
"No, I get all the rest I need when I sleep." And yet, in 
his long career, he has done an immense amount of work. 
He has kept well because he has known how to work, 
because he has never taken work hard. 



i 7 8 



IMITATING 

RICHARD MANSFIELD, the actor, used to be 
sensitive about the unkind things occasionally said 
of the stage and of actors. He regarded the ability 
to act as one of the deepest of all human instincts. He 
declared that it ran through nearly every expression in 
life, that most human beings acted nearly all the time. 
In a sense, Mansfield was right. Acting results from the 
instinct to imitate. And the instinct to imitate is deep- 
seated and one of the first of the instincts to reveal it- 
self. By it nature gives us our earliest lessons in living. 
So quick are children to imitate that educators regard the 
early years as of chief importance in the forming of 
character. 

It is often amusing to see the imitative instinct at 
work in children. On the stage and in every-day life 
children are born actors. Among them the imitative 
instinct finds plastic material to work on and to mold. 
As children grow older certain habits of imitation become 
fixed. These may last through life, working their influ- 
ence for good or for ill. 

Years ago, when I first went to Paris, I used to be aston- 
ished to hear the little French children that I saw playing 
under the trees in the Champs Elysees chattering away 
in French. Though they had been at work on the lan- 
guage not nearly as many years as I had been at work, 
they had already acquired a kind of perfection I could not 
hope" to attain. They had simply taken in the language 
through their ears and made it their own by means of the 
imitative instinct, which, in me, so far as the acquiring of 
a new language was concerned, had become enfeebled. 
My own astonishment and my envy of those little ones 

179 



IMITATING 

I was delighted to hear echoed by a French lady I met 
in Paris at that time. She had just come back from a 
visit to London and I asked her what had impressed her 
most during her stay. Quick as a flash she replied: 
"Hearing the children speak English in the parks. It was 
wonderful." 

I used to have a similar sensation myself in hearing Eng- 
lish children speaking. Their clear enunciation, their use 
of words and phrases seldom spoken by children in this 
country, their pretty voices, made me realize the care- 
lessness of our own way of speaking. 

Those children had not been taught to speak well. By 
the instinct to imitate they had merely reproduced the 
pronunciation and the tones of those about them. 

Once in Venice I was approached by an Italian guide 
offering his services. He spoke English very fluently and 
I went along with him. As he proceeded with his 
explanations I was amazed to discover that he used 
what to my ear was the most absurd cockney dialect, 
flavored with an Italian accent. I asked him where he 
had learned English. He replied: "On board ship. For 
five years I was a sailor on an English steamer running 
between Liverpool and Genoa." 

He seemed to be unaware that there was anything pecu- 
liar in his language, though, in his long experience as 
guide, he had evidently met a great many English-speak- 
ing travelers. 

By means of the imitating instinct, nature had enabled 
him to learn a language in a peculiar dialect, and once 
fixed in his mind it remained fixed. 

In all those cases we see the influence of environment 
at work. The marvel is that, in training children, we 
don't give it more consideration. 

180 



IMITATING 

We often speak of environment as if it were a material 
thing, largely a matter of neighborhood. But it is mental 
and it is spiritual. 

In the most subtle ways we all contribute to it, not 
merely by our speech, but by our attitude toward one 
another as well, even by our thinking. 

When children live in a narrow environment, accom- 
panied by cramping influences, they are almost certain 
to become narrow. When they see about them expres- 
sions of ill will, of envy, of jealousy and of resentment, 
they learn both to express and to feel all those qualities. 
In other words, they act up to those qualities. 

Parents often wonder why their children are, as they 
say, "so bad." They seldom stop to think of the influence 
of the example set by themselves. 

On the other hand, the instinct to imitate eagerly 
responds to wholesome influences. I know a woman who, 
after a long life spent in education work, frankly declares 
that she believes education is a failure. Her reason is that 
it cannot compete with the instinct to imitate, developed 
by the every-day influences in the home. She expresses 
pessimistic and heterodox ideas in regard to that sacred 
institution. In its very sacredness she finds the greatest 
of all obstacles to reform. She says that we speak of 
home as if it were the abiding-place of all the virtues, 
whereas it is, as at present established, a place where many 
of the evils of our society originate and develop. "Reform 
the home," she says, "and most other reforms will take 
care of themselves." 

What is it that this woman educator finds in most 
home life that is so harmful*? I once asked her and 
she replied with perfect frankness: "The home is the 
place where self-assertion finds its freest expression. 
Nearly every home contains at least one tyrant. And 

181 



IMITATING 

the influence of one tyrant expresses itself in all kinds 
of petty, but far-reaching evils. In many homes every 
member of the family is self-assertive. So we find there 
the most shocking disorder. There are comparatively few- 
homes in the world where there is self-control, consid- 
eration for others, encouragement of those qualities that 
make for peace and happiness." 

Several years ago I spent a few days in a very attrac- 
tive city in the Middle West. I met there many ladies 
of charming appearance, of exceptional taste in dress, 
and of delightful social graces. But among them I 
noticed one characteristic that struck me as curious and 
contradictory. It showed itself in the way they held 
themselves, in the way they talked, both in their loud 
tones and in their vigorously expressed opinions. 

I spoke with some astonishment of this characteristic 
to a friend who had lived there all her life. I asked 
her how she could explain it. "It's very simple," she 
replied. "It's the direct result of the example of a woman 
who came here from New York several years ago." She 
then mentioned the name of the woman, the wife of a 
very rich man. "She became a leader here and toward 
every one she adopted an arrogant manner that was con- 
sidered very smart. The result was that many of the other 
women here imitated it, even those who were at first 
most bitter in their resentment. It became the thing. 
And it has gone on ever since. Many people who come 
here notice it." 

The instinct to imitate is, like most other instincts, 
highly serviceable. But it has to be kept under con- 
trol. Before we yield to it we ought to be sure that what 
we imitate is good. One of the most pitiful things in the 
world is to see people imitating what is unworthy under 
the impression that such imitation seems creditable. 

182 



IMITATING 

I know a very clever girl who takes pride in showing 
her cleverness by ridiculing. She even ridicules those 
about her to their faces. Her victims, through courtesy 
or through dislike of making a scene, usually suffer in 
silence. Some of them take great pains to avoid her. 
Others punish her by speaking ill of her behind her back. 
Still others enjoy the expressions of her cleverness, both 
because these are amusing and because they put people at 
a disadvantage. For it is a pitiful truth that some of us, 
those, too, who may be most concerned about our own 
dignity, like to see others made absurd. 

This girl has so long indulged herself in the habit 
of ridicule that it has become fixed. It would be almost 
impossible for any one to convince her that it is disagree- 
able and that it does her harm. She is simply acting up 
to what she believes to be a delightful expression of her- 
self. In other words, she is imitating a wholly false ideal. 

It is curious to note how differently we may be affected 
by one another. With one person we behave in one way, 
and with another person we behave in another way. Here, 
perhaps unconsciously, we are imitating the qualities that 
we think will appeal to the person. 

In other words, one person brings out in us a certain 
set of qualities and another person brings out in us another 
set of qualities. Often by the display of such qualities 
we pass judgment on our friends. Those we fall into 
the gossiping habit with we judge as gossips. Those we 
try to appear at our best with we honor as superior to our 
every-day selves. It is the imitating instinct that directs 
us and often it is a fairly reliable guide, keener than we 
may suspect, making us do things that, to our sober reason, 
may seem extraordinary. 

It is by imitating that we finally make ourselves over, 
that we re-create, not merely the mansion of the soul, but 
the soul itself. 

183 



IMITATING 

And yet, however persistently we may indulge the imi- 
tating instinct, however we may act in our every-day life, 
it is the truth that we inevitably reveal. For what we 
long to be we essentially are. And here, perhaps, is the 
most powerful attribute in our struggling human nature. 
We may go wrong in our choice of qualities to imitate, 
we may follow false ideals, and where we follow good 
ideals we may repeatedly fail. Nevertheless, in our striv- 
ing we tend to express our noblest selves, our truest selves. 
Even where we go wrong there may be something of good 
in the animating spirit. Perhaps, through the generations 
this striving works an influence greater than we calculate. 
Surely it provides us with our greatest hope for the future 
of the race. 



184 



THE COMFORTABLE PEOPLE 

THEY may be found in the most unexpected places. 
As a rule we recognize them at once. In a casual 
meeting they make us feel at ease. Their very 
presence is soothing. Invariably their faces are placid. 
Their manners are so good that in their presence we never 
think of manners. They smile easily, but not too much. 
Unlike most of us, they carry about no barriers. They 
don't keep us at a distance. On the other hand, they 
never try to break through our defenses. They make us 
feel that they are willing to let us alone. In their company 
we unconsciously realize that our defenses are not neces- 
sary and we let ourselves emerge. Through the sense of 
comfort that we feel, perhaps we become comfortable 
people, too, for a time, at any rate. 

The other day I was walking along the street with a 
lady I knew very well. She happened to meet an 
acquaintance of her own sex. With some hesitancy, as if 
they both scented danger, they stopped to exchange greet- 
ings. The manner of each was formal. It was plain that 
they were both ill at ease. After a few awkward minutes 
the meeting ended and we passed on. 

For a long time the lady and I walked in silence. Then, 
with a smile, she said : "If the angels in heaven really pay 
any attention to us, they must laugh at some of our 
meetings." 

I was amused by this frank recognition of the char- 
acter of that scene. 

"Why do you suppose we have so many awkward 
meetings?" I asked. 

We walked a long distance before the reply came: 
"Isn't it because we think so much about ourselves and 

185 



THE COMFORTABLE PEOPLE 

about what people are thinking of us"? We don't dare to 
be unconscious. We get tangled up in our self-con- 
sciousness." 

Then I thought of the comfortable people. They 
were never tangled up in self-consciousness. They never 
seemed to think about themselves. 

I once attended a little evening party where the guests 
included several clever people. The atmosphere was pain- 
ful. The clever people were working hard, trying, it was 
plain, to appear at their best. Some of their remarks 
were extremely witty. Occasionally something would 
show real depth. But the brilliancy could not relieve the 
nervous tension. In the intervals between the sallies we 
were all ill at ease. 

Presently there entered a woman well known for her 
talent. Most of the people she knew rather well. She 
greeted every one. Presently she sat down and began to 
talk, not brilliantly, but spontaneously, delightfully, 
infusing into that group the spirit of freedom. 

At once the cleverness subsided. There was general 
relaxation and relief. 

Then I saw this woman was one of the comfortable 
people. 

It is wonderful what the comfortable people can do. 
Their presence alone is a deep, quiet force, all the more 
effective through working unobtrusively, mysteriously. 
As a rule they are not what the world calls interesting. 
3ut, as in the case of that literary woman, they may be 
endowed with intellectual power. It really makes very 
little difference whether they are gifted or commonplace, 
whether they are complex or simple. 

Wherever they go they bring peace, repose, health. 
Haven't you seen the comfortable people, without a word, 
by their mere presence, cause discord and argument to 

186 



THE COMFORTABLE PEOPLE 

subside'? They put mere opinions to shame. The ex- 
planation is, I think, that they shame the self-assertion 
that hides itself behind opinions. Before their uncon- 
sciousness, self-consciousness realizes its ugliness. It can't 
endure the association. 

Sometimes the comfortable people have a philosophy. 
They have achieved their wisdom through experience and 
through thinking. They give us all reason to hope. Per- 
haps by the same process we can succeed in becoming like 
them. 

On the other hand, most of the comfortable people 
possess an inherited genius. It may, of course, have been 
developed by practice in other generations. Perhaps they 
are the flowers of the race, the highest expression of human 
beauty. Of what consequence is it that the world has 
never celebrated them and held them up as heroes'? It is 
enough for them to be just what they are. And yet 
there is real loss here, for if there were distinction to be 
gained by the comfortable people we should all try to 
achieve it. Much of the effort that we now devote to 
jumping up and down, to making noise, to drawing atten- 
tion to our futilities, might be devoted to real profit, to 
those silent tasks worked out in the depths of consciousness. 

Of course, I know that in this opinion most people dis- 
agree, many of the thoughtful, too. They consider that 
the world is to be saved by strife, by turmoil, by fighting, 
by the exploitations of all the hideous qualities they 
glorify with the name of effort. Perhaps they are right. 
But they ought not to be sure. They know so little about 
the other method. And yet, in their hearts, they love the 
comfortable people. If you will watch the most valiant 
of the fighters, the noisiest, the most self-assertive, the 
most preposterous, you will find that every now and then 
they turn to the comfortable people for solace and for 

187 



THE COMFORTABLE PEOPLE 

rest. But for the comfortable people they might perish 
of fatigue. They might not be able to endure the burden 
of living with themselves. 

As a rule the comfortable people have a delightful 
humor. In every-day life they find a surprising number 
of things to laugh at. Not that they ridicule. Toward 
others they never take the superior attitude. On the con- 
trary, their humor carries no sting. It is perfectly inno- 
cent. It creates no uneasiness. In it any one can join. 
Often the comfortable people laugh at themselves. They 
show that they feel their own relation to the absurdities of 
life and the incongruities of humanity. They are true 
philosophers. 

The comfortable people know just how far to go. They 
never overdo. Instinctively they avoid doing the things 
that at the moment seem attractive and later carry pen- 
alties. In their relation to the present they never fail, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, to keep an eye on the future. 
They seem to be gifted with a genius for realizing im- 
plications, for feeling subtle intimations. The thoughts 
and the acts that carry seeds of evil they avoid. What- 
ever seeds they sow themselves almost invariably spring 
up in good deeds. Whenever life goes wrong with them, 
instead of reacting unwisely and making the situation 
worse, as so many of us do, they lie low. It is as if a storm 
passed over their heads, leaving them unharmed. They 
teach us the folly of ill-natured resistance. They have 
discovered the meaning of the words that to so many of us 
are unintelligible: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof." 

In the great figures of history there are few that can be 
included among the comfortable people. Even the 
philosophers betray a quality that bars them out, a kind of 
self -concern and remoteness. Indeed, most of the great 

188 



THE COMFORTABLE PEOPLE 

ones of the earth convey the sense of discomfort. In the 
achievement and the maintenance of success there is isola- 
tion. History echoes with the penalties that come out of 
it, the exactions, the apprehension, the uneasiness. These 
echoes suggest that the great have paid a fearful price. 
Often they long for the wide companionship of the com- 
fortable people. We all know how many of the kings of 
old, in their weariness of themselves and of their state, 
would occasionally assume a disguise and mingle freely 
in the every-day world. They were imitating the com- 
fortable people. 

Even among our own leaders, since the establishment 
of what we like to call democracy, though we might 
expect to find many of the comfortable people, there is 
a surprising lack. Lincoln is the conspicuous exception. 
From among the comfortable people no distinction could 
shake him, no responsibilities or trials. 

In literature we might expect to find many of the 
comfortable people. Surely they ought to be largely 
represented in the great providers of diversion from care, 
the wise observers, the wholesome entertainers. But can 
you think of many? Do you often read a story with the 
feeling that you would like to know the human being 
behind it 1 ? At this moment George Eliot comes to my 
mind. Of all imaginative writers she seems to me the 
most lovable. I cannot open a book of hers at random 
without feeling that a fine understanding is expressing 
itself, a large and generous sympathy. Nearly every one 
of us cherishes some writer that offers a refuge from the 
turmoil of experience, that gives us the restful sense pro- 
vided by the comfortable people. 

The rewards of the comfortable people are so great the 
marvel is that we don't all compete. And yet, in this 
company, the idea of competition is absurd. The comfort- 

189 



THE COMFORTABLE PEOPLE 

able people owe nothing to striving. Those who succeed 
in making themselves comfortable people begin in the 
simplest of all ways, by caring. Once care more for other 
people than for oneself and the problem is solved. In- 
stantly there is relief from the burden of our assertions 
and pretenses. The world changes. It grows more beau- 
tiful. It reveals wonders before hidden. It pours out 
unsuspected treasures. Those creatures that once went 
about, uninteresting, perhaps offensive, become delightful 
presences. Now, perhaps, we can see what the idealistic 
cults mean when they say that there is no such thing as a 
material world, that there is only spirit. It is we, our- 
selves, who make the base clay. Just as easy and with 
joy, instead of pain and sorrow, we can work the magic 
of enchantment. 

I sometimes wish that we could look into the minds of 
the comfortable people. They would give us valuable 
lessons. I wonder if we should not find them more or less 
alike. The differences in thinking would be of little ac- 
count. Essentially the mind of the highest and the low- 
est in the estimation of the world would be the same. 
We should see that all the minds were nourished from the 
same spring, forever bubbling, fresh and pure, carrying 
through the whole nature health and poise. Perhaps where 
the world has gone wrong is in its disregard of this spring. 
At times it denies that such a spring exists. But we all 
know better. We feel it when we are among the com- 
fortable people. Somehow, for the time, they purify the 
spring within us. Perhaps quite unintentionally on their 
part they make us realize that our own spring is impure. 
They make us see that if we all drew from the living 
waters of tolerance and generosity and sympathy how 
different life would be, how quickly our problems would 
settle themselves! 



190 



BEING IN A HURRY 

THERE is a business man of my acquaintance who 
is always in a hurry. I suspect that he is proud 
of the habit. At any rate he frankly displays it 
just as we all display qualities we are proud of. 

In the morning he runs down the street to catch his 
suburban train for his office. He darts into his office 
like a flash. He starts bells ringing. About him he 
creates excitement. He sets all his subordinates hurrying, 
too. 

When his subordinates offer him papers to sign he is 
in such a hurry to get the papers that he snatches at them. 
Often he misses. 

At night, when he starts to go home, he does not wait 
for the elevator to come up. He runs down the stairs, five 
flights, invariably reaching the ground floor after the 
elevator has arrived. 

At this hour there is no reason in the world why he 
should be in a hurry. For, as a rule, he does not try to 
catch any particular train. He knows that there are sev- 
eral late afternoon trains that he can take. He sometimes 
waits for a few minutes after reaching the station. 

These minutes he spends in fuming. 

At the age of sixty or so he is an irascible old man, with 
his face deeply lined and his nervous system shattered. 

Incidentally this man has a very unwholesome effect 
on those about him in his business. He wears them out. 
As soon as he leaves the office the whole office force feels 
relieved. 

I have been told that the moment he disappears, the 
subordinates gather and spend the rest of the afternoon in 
loafing and talking about him. 

191 



BEING IN A HURRY 

Naturally he is unpopular with his subordinates. They 
take as much advantage of him as they dare. 

I sometimes wonder how much this man gains by hurry- 
ing. In time he saves at most an hour or so a day. This 
hour or so he loses by the loss of physical and mental and 
moral efficiency caused by his hurrying. 

So there is really no gain in time. There is only loss. 

And besides the damage and loss created on every side 
by the man's habit of hurrying, there is the injury to the 
man as a social being. 

His nervousness, created and fostered by hurrying, 
has made it impossible for him to secure the calmness 
of mind and the poise that help to develop the higher 
qualities, both of mind and heart. 

His irascible manner causes him to seem very dicta- 
torial. To the opinions of others he listens with impa- 
tience. Often he can't wait for people to stop talking. 
He saves time by cutting in with opinions of his own. 

You see, his hurrying, which causes him to encroach 
so heavily on the rights of others, is only an expression 
of egotism. It has grown to be an indulgence, like a 
vice. And it preys on him, exactly as a vice would do. 

This man is, in some ways, an exaggerated type of the 
typical American. His hurrying thrives because it har- 
monizes with one of our most popular ideals. By hurry- 
ing he believes he is letting people see that he is a busy, 
therefore an important man. 

Here we should bear in mind the remark made by 
the historian Justinian about the mad Roman Emperor 
Domitian, that a man may be busy catching flies. 

Much of this particular man's hurrying, exactly like 
a great part of all hurrying, is wholly unimportant. 

Many of the things that he does might be left undone 
or might be far better done quietly and with more time. 

192 



BEING IN A HURRY 

If we look carefully into the lives of most hurried 
people we shall find that they are not really the important 
and effective people of the world. They are the noisy 
workers who think far more of themselves than of being 
really useful. 

On the other hand, if we look into the lives of the 
people who do really important work we shall find that 
they are seldom or never hurried. They always have 
plenty of time. 

There are some people who seem to be just a few minutes 
behind time. If they could catch up their lives would be 
serene. But they never do catch up. Breathlessly they go 
through the day as if they were pursuing a phantom. 
Often they live under a great nervous tension. At the 
end of the day they are exhausted. One hears them speak 
as if they were subjected to great trials, including over- 
work. But, as a matter of fact, the trouble lies wholly 
within themselves. If they would only calm down 
and do quietly and serenely what they have to 
do life would take on a wholly different aspect for them, 
becoming, instead of a torment, a source of peace 
and happiness. 

There are those who seem to be afraid of being ahead of 
time. If they make an appointment they can't endure 
keeping it promptly. They hate to be on hand a minute 
or two in advance. That minute or two is too precious. 
They must not be wasteful. Besides, in the interval, 
what would they do? The thought of idly waiting is 
distressing. And yet such people are nearly always waste- 
ful of time. They do a good deal of idling. What is 
more serious, by being late, they keep others waiting and 
encroach on time not their own. Moreover, when they 
arrive they are likely to be in a state of nervous excite- 
ment which is not at all pleasant. 

193 



BEING IN A HURRY 

To be always ahead of time is one of the best possible 
habits. It avoids irritation in oneself and in others. It 
tends to create a poise that is very valuable, carrying with 
it the sense of leisurely doing and of ease. So many 
things that we do, we ourselves fail to do properly through 
our flurried approach. If we took plenty of time over 
them, if we looked at them with a quiet mind, we should 
find most of the difficulties smoothing themselves away. 
Instead of being perplexed and troubled, we should know 
the joy of mastery. 

Tolstoy in one of his letters speaks with particular 
affection of his aunt, Tatyana. "She taught me," he 
says, "the beauty of a calm and unhurried life." The 
words suggest a soothing and inspiring presence. Here 
and there one sees people of this kind. Wherever they 
go they reproach the nervous haste of the world. They 
illustrate the meaning of wise living. They make us 
see how important it is to keep the sources of our being 
untroubled and self-controlled. 

The moment we get into a hurry the whole nature is 
agitated. Instead of being one creature, we become many 
creatures, imperfectly related, discordant, scattered in our 
thinking and acting under difficulties. Little things 
become effort and pain. Where there should be harmony 
there is discord. No wonder there is disaster in the lives 
of those who, from day to day and from year to year, 
live in this kind of turmoil. The resulting sickness, 
physical and mental, is nature's protest and warning. For 
this reason we ought to see the absurdity of our re- 
garding much of our sickness as an evil. It really is a 
blessing. But we cannot take advantage of it unless 
we realize its meaning. If we merely try to cure the 
symptoms we do ourselves harm. Instead of profiting, 
we resist our lessons. 

194 



BEING IN A HURRY 

Some people think they are not really accomplishing 
anything unless they hurry. The more they hurry the 
more faith they have in their own power. Sometimes 
they boast of the number of things they have done during 
the day. They seldom stop to inquire whether those 
things, before being done, were well considered or whether 
other things, which they have failed to do, may not have 
been more important. There are times when it is best not 
to do anything at all, to keep perfectly still, to relax, to 
rest, and to think. Many of our lives are like growths on 
ill-nourished ground, like trees rising out of rocky soil. 
It would be so much finer if we would only enrich the 
sources with contemplation, resulting in a deeper under- 
standing and sympathy. Those intervals of idleness 
that the hurried people so persistently avoid might be used 
with profit. 

There is a little country place within an hour's ride of a 
large city where several men of my acquaintance live. 
Most of them find traveling back and forth each day a 
hardship. Some of them complain. But one has told me 
that he considers those two hours among the best hours 
of his day. They give him time to think. "In the morn- 
ing," he says, "when I am going up to town I make my 
plans. In the evening, on my way home, I look over the 
day's work. But for those two hours on the train I 
should do a great many things differently, and, I believe, 
not so well." 

One of the arts of life is to be able to sit still and to 
enjoy. To the hurried people it is almost unknown. The 
reason is that their hurrying keeps the springs of being 
troubled. Even in those moments when they are forced 
to be still they feel hurried. Hurry has become part of 
their nature. They sometimes reach the state where it 
seems impossible for them ever to know peace. The best 

195 



BEING IN A HURRY 

they can achieve is a kind of self-forgetfulness in hurry. 
The more hurried they are the greater their illusion of 
freedom. Their hurrying is like drinking or taking a drug. 

If we cannot enjoy stillness, long continued, too, we 
may be sure that something is wrong. We are out of 
harmony. On realizing our condition, the best we can do 
is to stop our activities for a time and to learn to adapt 
ourselves to quieter living. Till we reach the power to 
enjoy stillness we cannot live wisely and happily. It is 
indeed a precious possession. And once attained it will 
pay us to keep it safe-guarded. One way is by testing 
ourselves with an interval of repose. If we find it difficult 
we may be aware that something is threatening. We must 
let down. When at last we do enjoy the interval we 
should devote it to at least a few minutes thinking of 
what we are doing, whether it is good and whether we are 
doing it in the right way. Soon we shall find our thoughts 
and our actions making life pleasant. So much that 
seemed important will betray its unimportance. So much 
that we might have neglected will present itself and invite 
us to action. Now the soul is receiving nourishment. It 
will send new vigor through all our being. 



196 



WAR 31 1913 



